The plane landed at Roissy at eleven o'clock; I was one of the first to collect my luggage. By half past twelve I was home. It was Saturday. I could go out and do some shopping, buy some ornaments for the house, etc. An icy wind swept down the Rue Mouffetard and nothing really seemed worth the effort. Animal-rights militants were selling yellow stickers. After Christmas, there's always a slight falloff in household food consumption. I bought a roast chicken, two bottles of Graves, and the latest copy of Hot Video. It was hardly an ambitious selection for my weekend, but it was all I deserved. I devoured half the chicken, its skin charred and greasy, slightly revolting. Shortly after three o'clock I phoned Valérie. She answered on the second ring. Yes, she was free this evening; for dinner, yes. I could collect her at eight. She lived on the Avenue Reille, near the Pare Montsouris. She answered the door wearing a pair of white tracksuit bottoms and a short T-shirt. "I'm not ready." she said, pulling her hair back. The movement raised her breasts: she wasn't wearing a bra. I put my hands on her waist, leaned my face into hers. She parted her lips and immediately slid her tongue into my mouth. A wave of violent excitement shuddered through me. I almost fainted, immediately got a hard-on. Without moving her pubis from mine, she pushed the front door, which closed with a dull thud. The room, lit by a single lamp, seemed huge. Valérie took me by the waist and, feeling her way, led me to her bedroom. By the bed, she kissed me again. I lifted her T-shirt to stroke her breasts; she whispered something I didn't catch. I knelt in front of her, slipping down her tracksuit bottoms and her panties, then pressed my face to her. The slit was damp, the labia parted; she smelled good. She let out a moan and fell back on the bed. I undressed quickly and entered her. My penis was on fire, spasms of intense pleasure coursed though it. "Valérie," I said, "I'm not going to be able to hold out for long, I'm too excited." She pulled me to her and whispered in my ear: "Come . . ." At that moment, I felt the walls of her pussy close on me. I felt as though I was disappearing into space, and only my penis was alive, a wave of extraordinarily intense pleasure coursing through it. I ejaculated lengthily several times; right at the end, I realized I was screaming. I could have died for such a moment.
Blue and yellow fish were swimming around me. I was standing in the water, balancing a few meters beneath the sunlit surface. Valérie was a little way off. She too was standing, a coral reef in front of her, she had her back to me. We were both naked. I knew that this weightlessness was due to a change in the density of the ocean, but I was surprised to discover that I could breathe. In a few short strokes I was beside her. The reef was stippled with star-shaped organisms of phosphorescent silver. I placed a hand on her breasts, the other on her lower abdomen. She arched herself, her buttocks brushed against my penis. I awoke precisely in that position; it was still dark. Gently, I parted Valerie's thighs so I could penetrate her. At the same time, I wet my fingers so I could rub her clitoris. I realized she was awake when she began to moan. She pushed herself onto her knees on the bed. I started to push into her harder and harder —I could tell she was about to come, her breaths came faster and faster. At the moment of orgasm she jerked and let out a harrowing cry; then she was still, as though exhausted. I withdrew and lay beside her. She relaxed and wrapped herself around me; we were bathed in sweat. "It's nice to be woken by pleasure," she said, putting a hand on my chest.
When I woke again, it was daylight; I was alone in the bed. I got up and crossed the room. The other room was as vast as I had imagined, with a high ceiling. Above the sofa, bookshelves ran along a mezzanine. Valérie had gone out; on the kitchen table she had left some bread, cheese, butter, and jam, I poured myself a coffee and went back to lie down. She returned ten minutes later with croissants and pains an chocolat and carried a tray into the bedroom. "It's really cold out," she said, getting undressed. I thought about Thailand. "Valérie," I said hesitantly, "what do you see in me? I'm not particularly handsome, I'm not funny; I find it difficult to understand why anyone would find me attractive." She looked at me and said nothing; she was almost naked, she had kept only her panties on. "It's a serious question," I insisted. "Here I am, some washed-up guy, not very sociable, more or less resigned to his boring life. And you come to me, you're friendly, you're affectionate, and you give me so much pleasure. I don't understand. It seems to me you're looking for something in me that isn't there. You're bound to be disappointed." She smiled, and I got the impression she was about to say something; then she put her hand on my balls, brought her face toward me. Immediately I was hard again. She wound a lock of hair around the base of my penis, then started to jerk me off with her fingertips. "I don't know," she said, without stopping what she was doing. "It's nice that you're unsure of yourself. I wanted you so badly when we were on the trip. It was awful, I thought about it all the time." She pressed harder against my balls, enveloping them in the palm of her hand. With her other hand she took some raspberry jam and spread it on my penis; then she began conscientiously to lick it off with wide sweeps of her tongue. The pleasure was becoming more and more intense, I parted my legs in a desperate effort to hold myself back. As though it was a game, she started to jerk me off more quickly, pressing my cock to her mouth. When her tongue touched the tip of the glans, I ejaculated violently into her half-open mouth. She swallowed with a little moan, then wrapped her lips around the head of my penis to get the last drops. I was flooded with unbelievable serenity, like a wave coursing through each of my veins. She took her mouth away and lay down beside me, coiling herself around me. "I almost knocked on your bedroom door that night, New Year's Eve, but in the end I didn't have the nerve. By then, I was convinced that nothing would happen between us. The worst thing was that I couldn't even bring myself to hate you for it. On package tours people talk to each other a lot, but it's a forced camaraderie; they know perfectly well they'll never see each other again. It's very rare for them to have a sexual relationship." "You think so?" "I know so: there have been studies on the subject. It's even true of 18-30 resorts. It's a big problem for them, because that's their whole selling point. Numbers have been falling consistently for ten years now, even though prices are dropping. The only possible explanation is that it's become more or less impossible to have a sexual relationship on vacation. The only destinations making any money are the ones with a large homosexual clientele like Corfu or Ibiza." "You're very up on all this," I said, suprised. "Of course, I work in the tourist industry." She smiled. "That's another thing about package tours: people don't talk about their professional lives much. It's a sort of recreational parenthesis, completely focused on what the organizers call the 'pleasure of discovery.' Tacitly, everyone agrees not to talk about serious subjects like work or sex." "Where do you work?" "Nouvelles Frontières." "So you were there in a professional capacity? To do a report or something like that?" "No, I really was on vacation. I got a big discount, obviously, but I took it as holiday time. I've been working there for five years and this was the first time I've been away with them."
As she made a tomato and mozzarella salad, Valérie talked to me about her work. In March 1990, three months before her bac, she started to wonder what she was going to do with her education —and, more generally, with her life. After much effort, her brother had managed to get a place in a geology course at Nancy; he had just received his degree. His career as a geological engineer would probably take him into the mining sector or the oil rigs: either way, he'd be a long way from France. He was keen on traveling. She too was keen on traveling, well, more or less; eventually, she decided to take a vocational-school diploma in tourism. She didn't really think the intellectual commitment necessary for university was in her nature. It was a mistake, and one that she quickly realized. The level of her BTS class seemed extremely low to her; she passed her midterms without the slightest effort and could reasonably have expected to get her diploma without even thinking about it. At the same time, she enrolled in a course that would give her the equivalent of an associate's degree in "literature and human sciences." Once she
had passed her BTS, she began a master's program in sociology. Here too she was quickly disappointed. It was an interesting field, with plenty of potential for innovation, but the methodologies suggested to them and the theories advanced seemed to her to be ridiculously simplistic. The whole thing smacked of ideology, imprecision, and amateurism. She quit her course halfway through the academic year without a qualification and found a job as a travel agent at a branch of Kuoni in Rennes. After a couple of weeks, just as she was about to rent a studio flat, she realized that the trap was sprung; from now on, she was in the working world. She stayed a year at the Rennes branch of Kuoni, where she proved to be a very good saleswoman. "It wasn't difficult," she said. "All you had to do was get the customers to talk a bit, take an interest in them. It's pretty rare, in fact, people who take an interest in others." Then the management had offered her a position as an assistant tour planner at their head office in Paris. It involved working on concepts for the tours, preparing the itineraries, the excursions, negotiating rates with hoteliers and local contractors. She had proved to be pretty good at this too. Six months later she replied to a Nouvelles Frontières ad offering a similar sort of position. It was at that point that her career really took off. They had put her in a team with Jean-Yves Frochot, a young MBA who basically knew nothing at all about tourism. He took to her immediately, trusted her, and although in theory he was her boss, he gave her a lot of room for initiative. "The good thing about Jean-Yves is that he was ambitious on my behalf. Every time I've needed a raise or a promotion, he's negotiated it for me. Now, he's head of Products Worldwide —he's responsible for supervising the entire range of Nouvelles Frontières tours, and I'm still his assistant." "You must be pretty well paid." "Forty thousand francs a month. Well, it's calculated in euros now. A bit more than six thousand euros." I looked at Valérie, surprised. "I wasn't expecting that," I said. "That's because you've never seen me in a suit." "You have a suit?" "There's not much point, I do almost all my work by phone. But if I need to, yes, I can wear a suit. I even have a pair of garters. We can try them out sometime, if you like."
It was then, somewhat incredulously, that I realized that I was going to see Valérie again, and that we would probably be happy together. It was so unexpected, the joy of this, that I wanted to cry; I had to change the subject. "What's he like, Jean-Yves?" "Normal. Married, two kids. He works a lot, he takes work home on weekends. I suppose he's a typical young executive, pretty intelligent, pretty ambitious; but he's nice, not at all fucked up. I get along well with him." "I don't know why, but I'm glad you're rich. It's not important, really, but it makes me happy." "It's true I'm successful, I have a good salary. But I do pay 40 percent tax, and my rent is ten thousand francs a month. I'm not so sure I've clone all that well. If my results fall off, they wouldn't think twice about firing me; it's happened before. If I had shares, then yes, I really would be rich. In the beginning, Nouvclles Frontières was just a discount-flight agency. They've become the biggest tour operator in France thanks to the concepts and the cost-efficiency of the tours; thus, to a large extent, to our work, Jean-Yves's and mine. In ten years, the value of the company has increased twentyfold; since Jacques Maillot still holds a 30 percent share, I can honestly say that he's grown rich because of me." "Have you ever met him?" "Several times. I don't like him. On the face of it, he's a stupid trendy Catholic populist, with his multicolored ties and his mopeds; but deep down he's a ruthless, hypocritical bastard. Jean-Yves had a call from a headhunter before Christmas; he's probably met up with him by now to find out more. I promised I'd call him when I got back." "Well, call him then; it's important." "Yes. . ." She seemed a bit doubtful; the mention of Jacques Maillot had depressed her. "My life is important too. Actually, I feel like making love again." "I don't know if I'll be able to get it up right away." "Then go down on me. It'll do me good."
She got up, took off her panties, and settled herself on the sofa. I knelt in front of her, parted her lips, and started to lick her clitoris gently. "Harder.,.," she murmured. I slipped a finger into her ass, pressed my face to her, and kissed the nub, massaging it with my lips. "Oh, yes," she said. I increased the force of my kisses. Suddenly, without my expecting it, she came, her whole body shuddering violently. "Come here, to me." I sat on the sofa. She snuggled against me, laying her head on my thighs. "When I asked you what Thai women have that we don't, you didn't really answer. You just showed me that interview with the director of the marriage agency." "What he said was true: a lot of men are afraid of modern women, because all they want is a nice little wife to look after the house and take care of the kids. That sort of thing hasn't disappeared really, it's just that in the west it's become impossible to express such a desire. That's why they marry Asian girls.'' "Okay." She thought for a moment. "But you're not like that. I can tell that it doesn't bother you at all that I have a high-powered job and a large salary; I don't get the impression that that scares you at all. But still you went off to the massage parlors and you didn't even try to pick me up. That's what I don't understand. What have the girls over there got? Do they really make love better than we do?" Her voice had changed slightly on these last words; I was rather touched and it took me a minute before I could answer. "Valérie," I said at last, "I have never met anyone who makes love as well as you; what I've felt since last night is almost unbelievable." I said nothing for a moment before adding: "You can't possibly understand, but you're an exception. It's very rare now to find a woman who feels pleasure and who wants to give it. On the whole, seducing a woman you don't know, fucking her, has become a source of irritations and problems. When you think of all the tedious conversations you have to put up with to get a chick into bed, only to find out more often than not that she's a second-rate lover who bores you to fuck with her problems, goes on at you about her exes —incidentally giving you the impression that you're not exactly up to scratch—and with whom you absolutely must spend the rest of the night at the very least, it's easy to see why men might prefer to save themselves the trouble by paying a small fee. As soon as they're a bit older or a bit more experienced, men prefer to steer clear of love; they find it easier just to go and find a whore. And it turns out that western whores aren't worth die effort, they're real human debris, and in any case, most of the year men have too much work and too little time. So, most of them do nothing; and some of them, from time to time, treat themselves to a little sex tourism. And that's the best possible scenario: at least there's still a little human contact in the act of going to visit a whore. There're also all those guys who find it easier just to jerk off on the Internet or watching porn films. As soon as your cock has shot its little load, you're perfectly content." "I see," she said after a long silence. "I see what you're saying. And you don't think that men or women are capable of changing?" "I don't think we can go back to the way things were, no. What will probably happen is that women will become much more like men. For the moment, they're still very hung up on romance; whereas at heart, men don't give a shit about romance, they just want to fuck. Seduction only appeals to a few guys who haven't got particularly exciting jobs and nothing else of interest in their lives. As women attach more importance to their professional lives and personal projects, they'll find it easier to pay for sex too; and they'll turn to sex tourism. It's possible for women to adapt to male values; they sometimes find it difficult, but they can do it; history has proved it." "So, all in all, things are in a bad way." "A very bad way," I agreed solemnly. "So we were lucky." "I was lucky to meet you, yes." "Me too," she said, looking me in the eyes. "I was lucky too. The men I know are a disaster, not one of them believes in love; so they give you this big spiel about friendship, affection, a whole load of stuff that doesn't commit them to anything. I've reached the point where I can't stand the word 'friendship' anymore, it makes me physically sick. Or there's the other lot, the ones who get married, who get hitched as early as possible and think about nothing but their careers afterwards. You obviously weren't one of those; but I also immedia
tely sensed that you would never talk to me about friendship, that you would never be that vulgar. From the very beginning I hoped we would sleep together, that something important would happen; but it was possible that nothing would happen, in fact it was more than likely." She stopped and sighed in irritation. "Okay," she said wearily. "I'd probably better go and call Jean-Yves." I went into the bedroom to get dressed while she was on the phone. "Yeah, the vacation was great . . . ," I heard her say. A little later she yelled: "How much? ..." When I came back into the room she was holding the receiver, looking thoughtful; she had not yet dressed. "Jean-Yves met the guy from the recruitment agency," she said. 'They've offered him a hundred and twenty thousand francs a month. They're prepared to take me as well; according to him, they're prepared to go as high as eighty thousand. He has a meeting tomorrow to discuss the job." "Where would you be working?" "It's with the leisure division of the Aurore group." "Is it a big company?" "I'd say so; it's the biggest hotel chain in the world."
2
Being able to understand a customer's behavior in order to categorize him more effectively, offering him the right product at the right time, but above all persuading him that the product he is offered is adapted to his needs: that is what all companies dream of.
—JEAN-LOUIS BARMA,
What Companies Dream Of
Jean-Yves woke at five in the morning and looked over at his wife, who was still sleeping. They had spent a terrible weekend with his parents— his wife couldn't stand the countryside. Nicolas, his ten-year-old son, loathed the Loiret too, as he couldn't bring his computer there: and he didn't like his grandparents, he thought they smelled. It was true that Jean-Yves's father was slipping. Increasingly, it seemed he was unable to look after himself, scarcely interested in anything apart from his rabbits. The only tolerable aspect of these weekends was his daughter, Angelique. At three, she was still capable of going into raptures over cows or chickens; but she was sick at the moment and had spent the greater part of the nights wailing. Once they got back, after three hours stuck in traffic jams, Audrey had decided to go out with some friends. Me had heated up something from the freezer while he watched some mediocre American film about an autistic serial killer —it was apparently based on a true story. The man had been the first mentally ill person to be executed in the state of Nebraska for more than sixty years. His son hadn't wanted any dinner, he had immediately launched himself into a game of Total Annihilation —or maybe it was Mortal Kombat II; he got them mixed up. From time to time, he went into his daughter's room to try and quiet her howls. She fell asleep around one o'clock; Audrey still wasn't home. She had come home in the end, he thought, making himself a coffee at the espresso machine; this time, at least. The law firm she worked for numbered Libération and Le Monde among its clients; one way or another, she had started hanging out with a group of journalists, television personalities, and politicians. They went out quite a lot, sometimes to strange places —once, leafing through one of her books, he came across a card for a fetish bar. Jean-Yves suspected that she slept with some guy once in a while; in any case, she and Jean-Yves didn't sleep together anymore. Curiously, for his part, lie didn't have affairs. Although he was aware he was handsome in a blond, blue-eyed, rather American way, he never really felt like taking advantage of the opportunities that might have presented themselves, and that were in any case pretty rare: he worked twelve to fourteen hours a day, and at his level of seniority, you didn't really meet many women. Of course there was Valérie, he suddenly remembered. He had never thought of her other than as a colleague before. It was odd to think of her in a new light; but he knew it was an unimportant daydream. They had been working together for five years now and in situations like that, things happened right away or they didn't happen at all. He admired Valérie a lot, her astonishing organizational abilities, her infallible memory; without her, he realized, he would never have gotten to where he was —or at least not as quickly as he had. And today, he might well be about to take a decisive step. He brushed his teeth, shaved carefully, before picking out a rather sober suit. Then he pushed open the door to his daughter's room; she was asleep, blonde like he was, in a pair of pajamas decorated with chicks. He walked to the République Fitness Club, which opened at seven. He and Audrey lived on the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, a rather trendy area that he hated. His meeting at the head office of the Aurore group was not until ten o'clock. Audrey could take care of getting the children dressed and driving them to school for once. He knew that when he got home tonight he would have a half-hour of nagging coming to him, and as he walked along the wet pavement among the empty boxes and the vegetable peelings, he realized that he couldn't care less. He realized, also, for the first time with absolute clarity, that his marriage had been a mistake. This kind of realization, he knew, usually precedes divorce by about two or three years —it's never an easy decision to make. The big black guy at reception gave him a not very convincing "How's things, boss?" He handed him his membership card, nodded, and accepted a towel. When he met Audrey, he had been only twentythree. Two years later they got married, partly—but only partly— because she was pregnant. She was pretty, stylish, she dressed well—and she could be very sexy when she wanted to. Besides, she had ideas. The emergence of American-style judicial proceedings in France did not seem to her to be a regression; on the contrary, she thought it was progress, a step toward better protection for citizens and civil liberties. She was capable of expounding fairly lengthily on the subject, she was just back from an internship in the United States. In a nutshell, she had conned him. It was strange, he thought, how he had always felt the need to be impressed intellectually by women. He started off with half an hour working through different levels on the StairMaster, then twenty laps in the pool. In the sauna, which was deserted at this time of day, he started to relax—and took the opportunity to run through in his mind what he knew about the Aurore group. Novotel-SIEH had been founded in 1966 by Gerard Pélisson and Paid Dubrule — one a graduate of the École Centrale, the other completely self-taught—using capital borrowed entirely from family and friends. In August 1967, the first Novotel opened its doors in Lille. It already included many of the characteristics that were to emerge as the hallmarks of the group: the rooms highly standardized, locations on the outskirts of cities—to be more precise, off the highway, at the last exit before the city itself—and above-average standards of comfort for the time (Novotel was one of the first chains to routinely offer en-suite bathrooms). It was an immediate success with business travelers: by 1972, the chain already numbered thirty-five hotels. This was followed in '73 by the creation of Ibis, the takeover of Mercure in '75 and of Sofitel in '81. During the same period, the group prudently diversified into catering, acquiring the Courtepaille chain and the Jacques Borel International group, already well established in the group-catering and self-service restaurant sectors. In 1983, the company changed its name to become the Aurore group. Then, in '85, they created the Formules 1 —the first hotels with absolutely no personnel and one of the greatest successes in the history of the hotel business. Already well-established in Africa and the Middle East, the company got a foothold in Asia and set up its own training center: the Aurore Academy. In 1990, the acquisition of Motel 6, comprising 650 locations throughout the United States, made the group the largest in the world: it was followed in '91 by a successful takeover bid for the Wagons-Lits group. These acquisitions were costly, and in '93, Aurore faced a crisis: the shareholders considered the company's debts to be too high, and the buyout of the Meridien chain fell through. Thanks to the transfer of a number of assets and a recovery plan for Europcar, Lenotre, and the Societe des Casinos Lucien Barriere, the situation was turned around by fiscal year 1995. In January '97, Paul Dubrule and Gerard Pelisson resigned the presidency of the group, to be succeeded by Jean-Luc Espitalier, a graduate of the Ecole Normale d'Administration, whose career was described by the financial magazines as "atypical." However, the two founders remained members of the boar
d of directors. The transition went well and, by the end of 2000, the group had reinforced its position as world leader, consolidating its lead over Marriott and Hyatt, numbers two and three, respectively. Of the ten largest hotel chains in the world, nine were American and one French —the Aurore group. At nine-thirty, Jean-Yves parked his car in the lot of the group's head office at Évry. He walked for a while in the frosty air, in order to unwind while waiting for the appointed time. At ten o'clock precisely, he was shown into the office of Éric Leguen, executive vice president in charge of hotels and a member of the board of directors. He was forty-five, a graduate of the École Centrale, with a degree from Stanford. Tall and sturdy, with blond hair and blue eyes, he looked a little like Jean-Yves — though ten years older and with something more confident in his attitude. "Monsieur Espitalier, our president, will meet with you in fifteen minutes," he began. "In the meantime, I'll explain why you're here. Two months ago, we bought the Eldorador chain from Jet Tours. It's a little chain of about a dozen beach hotel/holiday clubs spread over the Maghreb, black Africa, and the West Indies." "It's showing a loss, I believe." ''No more than the sector as a whole." He smiled briefly. "Well, yes, actually, a bit more than the sector as a whole. To be quite frank, the purchase price was reasonable, but it wasn't peanuts. There were a number of other groups in the running, and there are still a lot of people in the industry who believe that the sector will pick up again. It's true that, at the moment, Club Med is the only one managing to hold its own; strictly confidentially, we had actually thought of making a takeover bid for Club Med. But the prey was a little too large; the shareholders would never have approved it. In any case, it wouldn't have been a very friendly thing to do to Philippe Bourguignon, who is a former employee." He gave a rather phony smile, as though he was trying to suggest that this was perhaps —but not definitely—a joke. "Anyway," he went on, "what we are proposing is that you take over the management of all of the Eldorador resorts. Your objective, obviously, being to make them break even quickly and then to make them profitable." "That's not an easy task." "We're very aware of that: we feel that the level of remuneration offered is sufficiently attractive. Not to mention the career prospects within the group, which are huge. We have offices in 142 countries; we employ more than a hundred and thirty thousand people. On top of that, most of our senior executives quickly become shareholders in the group. It's a system we firmly believe in. I've written up some details for you with some sample calculations." "I would also need more detailed information on the circumstances of the hotels in the group." "Of course; I'll give you a detailed dossier a little later. This is not simply a tactical acquisition. We believe in the potential of the organization. Geographically the resorts are well sited, the general condition excellent—there's very little in the way of improvements to be made. At least, that's my opinion, but I don't have any experience of the leisure sector. We'll be working together, obviously, but you will make the decisions on these matters. If you want to get rid of a hotel or acquire another, the final decision in the matter is yours. That's how we work at Aurore." He thought for a moment before going on: "Of course, it's no accident that you're here. The industry has carefully followed your career at Nouvelles Frontières; you might even say you have something of a following. You haven't sought to systematically offer the lowest prices, or the highest level of service; in each case, you've matched a price that is acceptable to the clientele very closely with a certain level of service; that's exactly the philosophy we follow within every chain in our group. And something equally important, you've had a hand in creating a brand with a very strong image; that's something we haven't always been able to do at Aurore." The telephone on Leguen's desk rang. The conversation was very brief. He got up and led Jean-Yves along the beige-tiled corridor. Jean-Luc Espitalier's office was vast, it must have been at least twenty meters wide; the left-hand side was taken up by a large conference table with about fifteen chairs. As they approached, Espitalier stood and welcomed them with a smile. He was a small man, quite young—certainly no older than forty-five. His hair receding at the front, he looked oddly unobtrusive, almost retiring, as though he was trying to soften the importance of his role with irony. You probably shouldn't trust it, thought Jean-Yves; ENA graduates are often like that, they cultivate a comic veneer that turns out to be deceptive. They settled themselves in armchairs around a low table in front of his desk. Espitalier looked at him for a long time with his curious, shy smile before beginning to speak. "I have a lot of respect for Jacques Maillot," he said eventually. "He's built up a first-rate company, very original and with a real ethos. It doesn't happen often. That said —and I don't want to play the prophet of doom here —I think French tour operators need to prepare themselves for a rough ride. Very soon —it's inevitable at this stage, and in my opinion it's only a matter of months —British and German tour operators are going to make inroads into the market. They have two to three times the level of financial backing, and their tours are 20 to 30 percent cheaper, for a comparable or a better standard of service. Competition will be tough, very tough. To be blunt, there will be casualties. I'm not saying Nouvelles Frontières will be one of them; it's a group with a strong identity and level-headed shareholders, it can weather this. Nevertheless, the years ahead are going to be tough for everyone. "At Aurore, we don't have that problem at all," he went on with a little sigh. "We are the uncontested world leader in the business hotel sector, which fluctuates very little; but we are still poorly established in the leisure hotel sector, which is more volatile, more sensitive to economic and political fluctuations." "As a matter of fact," interrupted Jean-Yves, "I was rather surprised by your acquisition. I thought your main development priority was still business hotels, particularly in Asia." "That is still our main priority," replied Espitalier calmly. "In China alone, for example, there is extraordinary potential in the business hotel sector. We have the experience, we have the know-how: imagine concepts like Ibis and Formule 1 rolled out across the country. That said . .. How should I put this?" He thought for a moment, looked at the ceiling, at the conference table to his right before looking back at Jean-Yves. "Aurore is a discreet group," he said at length. "Paul Dubrule used to say that the sole secret of success in the market was to be timely. Timely means not too early: it's very rare for true innovators to reap the full profits of their innovation—that's the story of Apple and Microsoft. But obviously, it also means not too late. That's where our discretion has served us well. If you do your development work in the shadows, without making waves, by the time your competitors wake up and decide to move on to your patch, it's too late: you have your territory sewn up, you have acquired a crucial competitive advantage. Our reputation has not kept pace with our actual significance; for the most part, this has been done deliberately. "That time is gone," he went on with another sigh. "Everyone now knows that we are number one in the world. At that point it becomes useless—even dangerous —to count on our discretion. It's essential for a group of Aurore's size to have a public image. The business hotel sector is a dependable market, which generates guaranteed regular, substantial, revenues. But it's not, how shall I put it, it's not really fun.* People rarely talk about their business trips, there's no pleasure in telling people about them. To build a positive image with the general public there are two possibilities open to us: tour operating or resorts aimed at the 18-30 age group. Becoming a tour operator is further from our core business, but there are a number of very healthy businesses likely to change hands in the near future —we very nearly went down that road. And when Eldorador presented itself, we decided to seize the opportunity.'' "I'm just trying to understand your objectives," said Jean-Yves. "Are you more focused on profit or public image?" "That's a complex issue,'' Espitalier hesitated, shifting slightly in his chair. "Aurore's problem is that it has a very weak shareholder base. That, in fact, is what started the rumors of a takeover bid in 1994—I can tell you now," he went on with a confident gesture, "that they were completely unfounded
. That would be even more true now: we have no debt whatever, and no international company, even outside the hotel business, is large enough to mount a bid. What remains true is that, unlike Nouvelles Frontières for example, we do not have a coherent shareholder base. At heart, Paul Dubrule and Gérard Pélisson were less capitalists than they were entrepreneurs —and great entrepreneurs in my opinion, among the greatest the century has produced. But they did not seek to keep a controlling share in their business; it is this which puts us in a delicate position today. You know as well as I do that it is occasionally necessary to sanction prestige spending, something that will improve the strategic position of the group without making a positive impact on revenues in the short term. We also know that it is sometimes necessary to temporarily shore up a loss-making sector because the market hasn't matured or because it is going through a short-term crisis. This is something that the new generation of shareholders finds difficult to accept: the focus on rapid returns on investment has been deeply unconstructive and damaging." He raised his hand discreetly, seeing that Jean-Yves was about to interrupt. "Mind you," he went on, "our shareholders are not imbeciles. They are perfectly aware that in the current climate it would not be possible to bring a chain like Eldorador back to equilibrium in the first year —probably not even in two years. But come the third year they'll want to look very hard at the figures—and they won't be long in coming to their conclusions. At that point, even if you have a magnificent plan, even if the potential is vast, I won't be able to do anything." There was a long silence. Leguen sat motionless, he had lowered his head. Espitalier stroked his chin skeptically. "I see," Jean-Yves said at last. After a couple of seconds he added calmly: "I'll give you my answer in three days."