Accor franchise awards Michael Issenberg

AccorHotels has announced the winners of the sixth annual AccorHotels Pacific Franchise Awards for 2015, which recognise outstanding performance and achievements of the group’s franchise hotels.

The major award for Franchise Hotel of the Year has been to The Playford Adelaide – a member of the MGallery Collection.

General Manager of Novotel Ningaloo Resort, Darren Cossill and General Manager of Mercure Centro Port Macquarie Chris Abel were the joint winners of the highly coveted General Manager of the Year Award. The award recognises a leader who adopts the AccorHotels values of Innovation, Respect, Trust, Spirit of Conquest and Performance.

Novotel Ningaloo took home a hat trick winning the Loyalty Award in recognition of its highly successful engagement with AccorHotels loyalty programs AccorPlus and Le Club AccorHotels, as well as the brand award for Novotel of the Year, in addition to Darren’s General Manager accolade.

Picking up a second award, Mercure Centro Port Macquarie was named Mercure of the Year, while the ibis Styles of the Year was awarded to ibis Styles Cairns.

The Franchise Customer Service Award was won by Novotel Swan Valley Vines Resort, located in the well-known winery region near Perth. Lucy Parkinson, Front Office Manager from the host venue for the Franchise Awards and Conference, Voyages Ayers Rock Resort, was crowned the Peopleologist of the Year for her dedication to enhancing every guest’s hotel experience.

Accor franchise awards winners

AccorHotels Pacific Chief Operating Officer, Simon McGrath, said: “Our franchise hotel partners are an important and valuable part of our business and it’s fitting that we recognise their outstanding contribution at our annual conference and awards night.

“Encouragingly the tourism sector is seeing strong performance across the country and is helping to drive the ongoing market share growth of AccorHotels and above market results for our franchise network. Underpinning the Franchise hotels’ success is their access to our powerful global distribution platforms and industry-recognised loyalty programs – a powerful combination alongside our obsessive focus on the guest.

“We congratulate all our franchise award winners and look forward to another exciting year ahead of growth in our franchise portfolio, as we are on track to expand to over 100 hotels in the next 12-18 months,” McGrath said.

AccorHotels have welcomed over 10 new hotels to its franchise network including The Sebel Pelican Waters Golf Resort and Spa, The Sebel South Brisbane, Novotel Wollongong, Mercure Warragul, Mercure Launceston, Mercure Wellington Abel Tasman, Mercure Goulburn, Mercure Ballarat Hotel and Convention Centre, ibis Styles Invercargill and ibis Styles Ballarat.

New-build franchise hotels set to open in coming months include Novotel New Plymouth Hobson (Dec 2015), and Elements of Byron MGallery Collection (Feb 2016), The Sebel Yarrawonga (2018) and Pullman and ibis Brisbane Airport (2017).

The AccorHotels Pacific Franchise Awards were held at Voyages Ayers Rock Resort on Thursday 22 October as part of the Group’s annual franchise conference attended by over 70 franchisees.