Orchestrating the overhaul of Accor’s wellness ecosystem through a headless architecture
- [ Nuxt.js ]
- [ GraphQL ]
- [ Accessibility ]
- [ Contentful ]
The challengeDelivering a seamless customer journey for Accor’s wellness offerings
Accor, the global leader in augmented hospitality with 5,500 hotels, 10,000 restaurants and bars and 45 brands across 110 countries, launched spa.accor.com in 2024. The ambition was to become the number one spa booking platform for the Accor brand, with the goal of centralising and digitising its wellness offerings (à la carte treatments, spa stays, packages, gift certificates, etc.), while meeting growing demand from hotel guests and local customers. To achieve this goal, the project had to not only adhere to the technical, UX and visual standards of the Accor digital ecosystem, but also implement a 100% headless and API-first technical architecture that delivers a fluid and seamless user experience.
We are very proud of the result. The platform has been very well received, both for its graphic design, with its understated, minimalist approach and for its final implementation. It’s a very fine product that continues to evolve and is delivering remarkable results.
A modular technical foundation and product agility focused on digital value
A modular architecture connected to central APIs
Provide a modular platform capable of consuming and exposing data from multiple sources via a unified API, while giving Accor teams granular control over content through Contentful, a composable CMS. This architecture enables the management of all spa offerings from a central hub, the sharing of technical interconnections and the preparation for future product evolution without a major overhaul. The performance of this architecture is guaranteed through optimised management of API calls via GraphQL and caching via Redis, ensuring that APIs are only called when necessary.
A Backend-for-Frontend architecture designed to enhance the user experience
In addition to the central API, Kaliop implemented a Back-for-Front (BFF) architecture dedicated to the Wellness Spa front-end. This intermediate layer acts as an orchestrator: it aggregates and adapts data from multiple sources to precisely meet the needs of the interfaces, without directly exposing the complexity of the back end. This approach reduces the load on the front end, optimises performance and ensures the consistency of displayed data, while facilitating the evolution of user flows and the maintenance of future integrations.
Agile and integrated collaboration
By adopting an agile product methodology, the Kaliop and Accor teams worked as a single team throughout the project. Organised into short sprints, we involved all stakeholders from the earliest stages: UX design, front-end and back-end development, accessibility and quality assurance. This approach enabled rapid iterations, continuous deliveries and constant alignment with business objectives, while maintaining fluid communication and collective decision-making.