For decades, hotel loyalty programs were largely built around a familiar proposition: stay more, earn more, redeem later. The value equation was rational, transactional and easy to understand.
Frequent travelers accumulated points, elite status and, eventually, free nights.
ALL Accor is trying to push that model into a more emotional, experience-led future. After all, if you travel often, sometimes the idea of another night isn’t so exciting.
In a recent Zoom conversation, Mehdi Hemici, Chief Loyalty & E-Commerce Officer at Accor, described a loyalty strategy that is less about simply rewarding hotel stays and more about building a global ecosystem around passions: sports, entertainment and gastronomy. The idea is straightforward but powerful. Points are still important, but they are no longer the whole story. They are, in Hemici’s words, “a means to an end.”
Accor Loyalty exec, Mehdi Hemici
Accor
The real goal is to create access, recognition and memorable moments that make members feel known, valued and emotionally connected to the brand.
Hotel Loyalty Must Move Beyond Free Nights
The travel industry is facing a new loyalty challenge. Customer acquisition is expensive. Competition is intense. Consumers have more choice than ever. As a result, the old growth model of simply finding new customers is giving way to a relationship model focused on retention, advocacy and lifetime value.
Hemici said ALL Accor saw this shift clearly when it began building what he described as a next-generation loyalty platform in 2019. Travelers wanted value and transparency first. They wanted to know they were buying at the right price, with no hidden conditions and a clear value exchange.
But once that threshold was met, they wanted something deeper.
They wanted emotional connection. They wanted recognition that traveled with them. They wanted a loyalty program that reflected who they are, not just how often they book a room.
That insight led ALL Accor to focus on three passion points with broad global appeal: sports, entertainment and food.
ALL Accor’s Loyalty Strategy: Sports, Music And Food
ALL Accor has built partnerships and experiences around venues, teams, tournaments and culinary moments. Hemici pointed to Accor Arena in Paris, Wembley Arena in London, Accor Stadium in Sydney, Kudos Bank Arena in Sydney and other venues as part of a broader experience ecosystem that gives members access to sports, music and entertainment.
The company also works with properties and partnerships tied to Roland-Garros, Paris Saint-Germain and SailGP. In gastronomy, ALL Accor has worked with food festivals such as Taste of Paris and Taste of London, while increasingly using its own chefs and hotels to create culinary masterclasses and behind-the-scenes experiences.
The strategic point is not merely to sponsor events. It is to transform access into memory.
A traditional hotel sponsorship might mean signage, a hospitality suite and VIP hosting. ALL Accor is trying to go further. Hemici described how the company brought the energy of Roland-Garros into its hotels in cities including Tokyo, São Paulo, Shanghai and Paris. Hotels were reimagined with immersive tennis-themed experiences, masterclasses and appearances from players. In Paris, ALL Accor even transformed areas of the Royal Monceau Raffles, the first Parisian palace ever entirely reimagined around Roland-Garros, turning a sporting event into a unique hospitality experience.
The fan zone from Roland-Garros created for the ALL Accor loyalty program as a way to give fans a unique experience at an iconic event.
Accor
This is loyalty as participation, not just promotion.
Live Events Are Becoming The New Loyalty Currency
One of the most compelling examples Hemici shared was La Suite Novotel by ALL Accor inside the Paris Saint-Germain stadium, where members can watch a match and then sleep inside the venue with family. For a frequent traveler who may already spend 150 or 180 nights a year in hotels, another free night may not be the most motivating reward.
But sleeping inside a stadium after a PSG match? That is a story.
Hemici framed this kind of reward as a “storytelling moment.” It creates something members remember and share. It gives the loyalty program cultural relevance beyond the hotel stay itself.
Another example is ALL Accor’s Dream Tournament with PSG Legends, where members redeem points for the chance to play with former iconic players. Hemici said the purpose is not simply brand amplification. It is about delivering on a childhood dream.
That distinction matters. When loyalty becomes experiential, the reward is no longer just economic. It becomes emotional and social. It gives members something they cannot easily buy, compare or replicate.
The Business Case For Emotional Loyalty
Experience-led loyalty can sound expensive or hard to scale. The obvious question is whether these non-hotel rewards actually help the core hotel business.
Hemici said ALL Accor is seeing strong evidence that they do.
According to him, today, one out of every three room bookings within the ALL Accor portfolio is made by a loyalty member, a clear indicator of the program’s growing centrality in how guests choose where to stay. He also said members who experience these passion-led rewards come back 3.5 times more often than non-members and spend twice as much.
That is the business case for emotional loyalty. Experiences may sit outside the hotel stay, but they can reinforce the hotel relationship. Members earn through the core business and redeem through a broader ecosystem. The more compelling the redemption options become, the more reasons members have to stay engaged.
In other words, expanding loyalty beyond hotels does not have to dilute the hotel business. Done well, it can make the hotel brand more central to a member’s lifestyle.
Why Gen Z And Millennials Are Joining Through Experiences
The next wave of loyalty growth may not begin with the hotel brand at all.
Hemici said younger consumers, especially Millennials and Gen Z, are increasingly discovering ALL Accor through the excitement of experiences on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. They may first see a music, sports or food experience and only later realize the breadth of Accor’s hotel portfolio, which includes brands such as Fairmont, Raffles, Mondrian, Pullman, Sofitel and Banyan Tree.
That reverses the traditional loyalty funnel.
Historically, a traveler stayed at a hotel, joined the program and then learned about rewards. Now, a younger consumer may discover the reward experience first, join because the program feels culturally relevant and then work backward into the hotel brands and booking behavior.
This is especially important because younger consumers tend to value transparency, simplicity and ease of use. Hemici said ALL Accor gives members a clear euro- or dollar-correlated value for points in the digital wallet when those points are used for hotel stays. That clarity helps demystify the program and gives members confidence that their points have understandable value.
The experience portfolio creates aspiration. The transparent points model creates trust.
Both are needed.
ALL Accor’s Next Move: A New Experience Platform With Fever
ALL Accor is also preparing the next phase of its experience strategy. Hemici said the company plans to launch a new experience platform in Q1 2027, built with Fever, the experience discovery and ticketing company.
The goal is to combine ALL Accor’s own experience assets with new experiences sourced through Fever. Hemici described the platform as a way to make experiences relevant both “at home or away,” not only when members are traveling.
That point is important. A hotel loyalty program that only matters during a trip has limited frequency. A loyalty ecosystem that connects with members at home, before travel, during travel and after travel has more chances to build habit, data, relevance and emotional connection.
ALL Accor has already built a sizable platform. Hemici said the program now offers more than 7,000 events and experiences per year. He also said ALL Accor’s loyalty program has reached more than 100 million members since launching in late 2019.
Those numbers suggest this is not a side project. It is a strategic repositioning of what hotel loyalty can become.
The Future Of Loyalty Is Access, Recognition And Memory
ALL Accor’s approach reflects a broader shift across travel, hospitality and consumer loyalty. Points still matter. Free nights still matter. Price and value still matter. But they are increasingly table stakes.
The next frontier is emotional differentiation.
Members want to feel recognized. They want a program that understands their passions. They want rewards that feel personal, shareable and memorable. They want the loyalty brand to open doors they could not open on their own.
For ALL Accor, that means using hotels not just as places to sleep, but as gateways into culture, sport, music and food. It means treating loyalty not as a ledger of transactions, but as a platform for experiences.
The winners in the next generation of loyalty will not be the companies with the most complicated points charts. They will be the companies that make members feel something.
ALL Accor is betting that the future of hotel loyalty is not just about where travelers stay.
It is about what they remember.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.forbes.com ’
