Expert insight by Gael Perez, Director Congress Europe & North Africa, Accor
In France, the Congress market represents €2 billion in economic impact (2023 source). The hospitality sector benefits directly, as accommodation is the second-largest expense category for congress attendees.
This makes the Congress segment a strategic growth lever for hotel operators.
Projections for the Congress market over the next 10 years show growth of around 11.35%, confirming there is still significant room for expansion.
A positive outlook that reinforces the need for a dedicated, structured approach.
How hoteliers can capitalize on it
Build strong relationships with your Convention Bureau.
-> Close collaboration increases visibility and recommendations for your property.
Define an attractive pricing strategy using congresses as a pricing baseline. Congresses are usually confirmed well in advance, making it possible to set a solid base strategy and optimize public rates for stronger RevPAR.
-> A model that improves forecasting while boosting rate performance.
Design tailored offers for Congress attendees (hotel + public transport packages, early breakfast, city discovery, etc.). A congress attendee is first and foremost a traveler, and a potential advocate for your hotel.
-> Beyond the event itself, the congress becomes an entry point into a long-term customer relationship.
What Accor does with Backyou
The platform supports the growing digitalization of the MICE ecosystem
We use Backyou to build hotel offers tailored to each event, in partnership with our agency and PCO clients. This helps us optimize the way we collect rates and room blocks, while significantly improving speed and efficiency. For our partners, it also represents a meaningful time-saving benefit as the MICE sector continues to digitalize.
The result: clearer organization, stronger collaboration, and greater day-to-day efficiency.
For hotels, responding to our requests through the Backyou platform offers multiple advantages: better tracking of offers (proposals, specifications, deal status, sales follow-up), consolidation of all requests in one place, and access to ongoing files for all team members.
On our side, Backyou also enables a broader team-based view across a European environment, where teams collaborate remotely and across markets.
