Accor overshoots 600,000-user mark

Accor Services company, one of the most important players on the meal ticket market, whereof it accounts for an estimated 38% witnessed an over 80% growth for the programmes based on gift vouchers.

a??We have focused on new services to boost the benefits of the existing products. We estimate a 5% increase for the total issue volume (i.e. the value of the meal vouchers sold, which reached 227 million euros last year, a 20% increase on 2003), yet the incentive-type programmes based on gift vouchers witnessed growth above expectations,a?? says Cristina Prelipceanu, Accor Services marketing manager.

The company that has 600,000 clients in Romania saw an increase of 60% in the number of companies requesting Ticket Cadou (Accora??s gift voucher in Romania, a product introduced early in 2003). Whereas only 3,000 companies were using the Accor Servicesa?? gift vouchers in March 2004, the number of such users has reached 5,500 this month. Once the number of users increased, the number of stores affiliated to the Ticket Cadou programme doubled.

The number of affiliates now reaches 17,600 from the 9,800 in March 2004. a??More than 20% of the companies that get meal tickets have already resorted to the use of gift vouchers, as well,a?? the companya??s marketing manager says.

The deregulation of the market, as a result of the Finance Ministrya??s set quotas for companies being dropped (as of January 1, 2005), has not come with significant growth for Accor, because the company already has a consolidated market.