Introduction Accor is a chain of hotels which operates in 92 countries around the world. The hotel has its headquarters in Paris, France. Founded in 1967 by Gérard Pélisson and Paul Dubrule, this hotel has over 3600 franchises in the five continents. It offers economy, budget lodging and luxurious accommodations in these facilities (Kwaku & Murray, 2004). This firm faced some challenges during its early years of operations, especially in attracting the high class customers into its stores. However, this changed in the 1980s and 1990s when it started experiencing rapid growth. The firm was able to expand its operations to other European nations and North America during this period. Currently, Accor has the largest number of hotels in various categories in Paris, France. This research seeks to investigate the marketing strategies that this firm has been using in the market, and how it has been able to manage the market competition. Level of Analysis Statement In this study, it was important to understand the strategies that Accor S.A. is using to manage the market forces within the home country and in the international market. According to Cook (2008), the external environment in the hospitality industry has remained very dynamic due to the changes that take place in the field of technology. In order to remain competitive, Accor must find a way of maintaining its internal environmental factors to be in line with the external environmental factors. In this report, therefore, the level of analysis will focus on both the internal and external factors. The analysis of the external factors will create awareness of the factors that this firm must be able to deal with in the market in order to remain competitive. On the other hand, the analysis of the internal factors will make it possible to understand how this firm is ready to deal with the external factors in order to achieve success (Cook, 2005). Figure1: The Leadership Structure at Accor S.A. Situation Analysis According to Nash (2000), the best way of understanding the forces that affect the normal running of a business entity is to conduct a situation analysis. The analysis involves investigating both the internal and external environmental factors (Bradley, 2005). In this study, it will be necessary to investigate the internal and external environmental factors that affect the normal operations of the firm. Market Analysis At this stage it is important to analyse the current position of this firm within the industry. The following graph shows the current position of Accor in its life circle. Figure 2: Accor’s Life Cycle in the Market. As shown in the diagram above, the firm has achieved maturity in its market growth. Although the firm has been making an effort to spread its operations to the emerging markets in Asia and Africa, its market in Europe has been invaded by other emerging firms. This means that the rate at which it is losing its market share in Europe is almost the same as the rate at which it is gaining market share in these emerging markets. The model that will be used to investigate the external environment of Accor is the PESTEL Model Figure 3: PESTEL Model. These factors can be summarised in the table below. Table 1: Summary of PE