Accor to join Qualmark

17th August, 2006

Accor to join Qualmark
- announced at ‘Qualmark® Mystery Shop’ product launch

It was announced today at the ‘Qualmark® Mystery Shop’ product launch, that Accor New Zealand have chosen to become Licence Holders of New Zealand tourism’s official quality assurance agency.

The Accor organisation is responsible for a number of world class hotel brands, including the Sofitel, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Mercure and Ibis hotel offerings. These major hotel brands are now to be assessed, and will shortly carry the prestigious Qualmark®.

Qualmark CEO, Geoff Penrose says; “I am delighted that Accor have made this important decision, signalling their commitment not only to ongoing excellence and organisational quality, but also to their confidence in Qualmark’s quality management programmes and processes. It is great to have them on board”.

“2006 has seen Qualmark welcome the Millennium Hotels & Resorts Group (Millennium, Copthorne and Kingsgate Hotels), the Intercontinental Hotels Group (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn Hotels); and now we welcome the Accor group of hotels. I thank them for their trust in making this step, and also thank them for their support of the Qualmark Mystery Shop product offering”, he adds.

John Farrell, Director of Sales and Marketing, Accor New Zealand says; “Accor is looking forward to becoming a member of Qualmark in the near future, and delighted that Qualmark have chosen to launch the enhanced Mystery Shop product at our Novotel operation in Ellerslie.

Our support for this quality management tool, and the mutual respect held by both the Accor and Qualmark organisations, can be demonstrated by Qualmark’s integration of aspects of Accor’s world-wide best practice into the ‘Mystery Shop hotel checklist’.

Accor are confident that the Qualmark Mystery Shop is capable of providing not only optimal consumer feedback & benchmarking data, but also provides an opportunity for an operation to confidentially self-identify strengths and weaknesses without the findings impacting the ‘official’ Qualmark assessment”.

“Accor underlines the need for consistency in hotel standards. The need to apply a national star rating system is relevant to independent properties and those managed by international operators”, adds Mr. Farrell.

ENDS

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