What a delight it was to be back with the hotel industry at an investment conference.
The International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin was not as large as previous years — the last one being all the way back in March 2019 — but it still came off as an impressive return.
IHIF organizer Questex said there were 1,200 delegates signed up. Considering the majority needed to come into Germany from other countries — and with all the forms, tests and paperwork needed, including for many the requirement to get tested in Germany within 48 hours of returning to their homes — that number is highly impressive.
The receptions were a little more muted, with attendees collecting food from stands while wearing masks, but eating it back at tables where they were allowed to take them off.
The CEOs of Hilton, Marriott International, Minor International, Best Western, Choice Hotels International, to name a few, all jetted in from other continents.
Opposite IHIF’s host hotel — the InterContinental Hotel Berlin — the Pullman Berlin Schweizerhof welcomed a one-day show called Adjacent Spaces, which focused on sheltered apartments, aparthotels, hostels and other alternative accommodations.
It was at that hotel where I had the pleasure of sitting down with Accor’s president and CEO Sébastien Bazin, and after some preliminary chat about health, family and staff he moved to a vitally important subject.
“We now have Messi,” Bazin told me.
Lost?
Messi is Lionel Messi, generally regarded as the world’s greatest football player and who has just left Barcelona after winning 10 Spanish top-league titles, four Spanish knockout Copa del Rey titles and four pan-European team Champions League titles, among 34 overall titles. His career spans more than 17 years in which he has played for the Catalan side 520 times and scored 474 times.
On Aug. 11, Messi joined Paris Saint-Germain, which for a while Bazin was president of and owner via his previous firm Colony Capital.
Accor today is Paris Saint-Germain's shirt sponsors, the jersey front of players such as Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and Messi’s fellow Argentine Ángel di María bearing the logo of All, Accor’s loyalty program.
That sponsorship does not come cheap, I imagine.
Bazin is a fan of the club, which was clear by the glee in this voice about the signing.
PSG, as the club is always called, have never won Europe’s top football prize, the Champions League. It reached the final in the 2019-2020 season but lost to Germany’s Bayern Munich.
“It’s now or never,” I said to Bazin. “You do not sign Messi unless that is the goal. You might have a [domestic French] team such as Monaco or Metz that on occasion challenges for the French title, but PSG does not need to win more or those.”
His reply was also economic in nature.
“[Champions League] now is a must. The club has 600 million euros ($708.9 million) in annual salaries,” he replied, a sum that I believe mirrors those players in the American football.
Bazin said PSG's management skills needed to take charge of some very highly paid athletes.
“I asked one of the directors about the coach. He told me the team is exceptional, but at that level the most a coach can be is rather like a human resources director, making sure the star players are happy,” Bazin said.
PSG's coach is yet another Argentine, Mauricio Pochettino, who has led the team since February.
That comment might have some parallels in how hotel firm CEOs are conscientiously looking after their staffs rocked by personal and career challenges.
I am sure he’ll be leaving nothing on the pitch, to use a football cliché.
For the rest of Bazin’s chat with me and his keynote session on IHIF’s main stage, please click here.
Just do not expect any football talk there.
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