Accor : An out-of-the-box interview with Steven Daines

Your off-the-cuff response to the word 'innovation'

Innovation is life. Every living creature's genetic code, or DNA, always includes something new by comparison with its 'parents', something minute, but real. So basically, we are programmed to innovate, and society, which is conservative by nature, is what often holds us back. To innovate all you have to do is let go, be true to yourself, and dare to break away from the routines imposed on us.

Finish this sentence: In the future, our guests will have …

… access to a host of enriching, invigorating and transforming travel experiences through AccorHotels' vast ecosystem.

An innovation in your pocket

On my mobile, I have an app that allows me to track real-time marine traffic and weather conditions in The Channel. I look at it at least once an hour, a bit less at night…

I can't think how I survived without this app which is perfectly useless in Paris, but certainly stirs my imagination.

The craziest thing you would request from John Paul

It wouldn't be a request for myself! I'd ask them to handle the concierge service for our private rental ecosystem straight away. The request in itself isn't crazy, but getting it done at the drop of a hat would be.

A message for the 'New Businesses' team

Don't over-listen to outside advice: just keep going!

If you were a great place to live

I'd be a ship exploring the southern Antarctic.

If you were a startup

I'd be an online agency specialized in disruptive, uncomfortable, high-risk trips organized spontaneously by members. I'd call it ' Shackleton ', after the outstanding British Antarctic explorer who recruited his crew with the promise of extreme hardship and a doubtful safe return.

If you were a 140-character tweet

'A day without doing something totally absurd and outside your routine is a day lost.'