Skift Take
Accor CEO Sébastien Bazin shares what drives his decisions at scale for one of the world's largest hotel groups. He calls data essential, but says it should feed instinct rather than overrule it, a claim worth testing at Skift Global Forum.
Sébastien Bazin has led Accor since 2013. In that time, he’s built a rule for big calls: data sharpens the decision; it doesn’t make it. Bazin joins Skift Global Forum on September 22–24, 2026, to explain how that rule holds across 45-plus brands and 5,800 hotels and resorts, and where he draws the line between technology and the human side of hospitality.
The Rule He Decides By
Skift: The pace of change is only increasing. When you’re trying to make a decision, what’s the actual test or rule you use?
Bazin: I start with my gut, then my heart, then my brain. My instinct tells me what feels right, my heart tells me how the decision will affect people and my brain tells me the timing. Data is essential, but it should nourish your instinct, not replace it. In a world moving this quickly, waiting for perfect information often means you have already waited too long.
Skift: The customer journey keeps getting longer and more fragmented. How has your thinking changed about traveler choice and how your company curates products and offerings?
Bazin: AI is going to transform nearly every part of the customer journey, particularly how people discover, plan and personalize travel. In the next few years, travelers will expect experiences that feel increasingly individual and intuitive. Our role is to use technology and better data to meet those expectations without losing what matters most in hospitality: the human connection. In fact, as technology becomes more powerful, I believe the human touch becomes even more valuable. That is where our teams, our brands and the experiences we create can truly differentiate.
Where Technology Stops and People Start
Skift: What is one area that the travel industry doesn’t discuss or pay attention to enough?
Bazin: People. We talk about technology, distribution and changing traveler behavior, but hospitality is fundamentally about human connection. Hotels are places where cultures meet, communities gather and people build careers. Hospitality is also one of the few industries that can act as a true social elevator, creating opportunity for people from very different educational, social and economic backgrounds. As our industry embraces AI and new technology, we cannot allow that human role to become secondary. It should become even more central.
Where This Conversation Lands
- Instinct at scale: gut, then heart, then brain is a rule for one person. Across 5,800 hotels and thousands of daily decisions, what does an instinct you can’t teach become once you have to hand it to an organization?
- The speed argument: Bazin’s claim is about time, not data — waiting for a complete picture means acting too late. For operators trained to de-risk before they move, that’s an uncomfortable position to defend on stage.
- The human-touch bet: he argues technology makes people more valuable, not less. It’s the optimistic case, and the one worth pressing hardest, since the same tools that free up staff can just as easily replace them.
- Hospitality as social elevator: Bazin calls the industry one of the few real engines of opportunity across backgrounds. It doesn’t show up on a P&L, which is exactly why it’s worth asking whether it survives the next margin squeeze.
- The handover question: Bazin has said his successor should command technology better than he does. If instinct-led leadership is the era ending at Accor, what does the next one run on instead?
Hear from Sébastien Bazin alongside Expedia Group’s Ariane Gorin, Wyndham’s Geoff Ballotti, and Qatar Airways Group’s Hamad Al-Khater, live at Skift Global Forum, September 22–24 in New York.