Case Study – Fairmont Ramla Riyadh: Intelligent Optimisation for Luxury Hospitality
Accor is one of the world’s leading hospitality groups, operating more than 5,400 properties across 110 countries under premium and luxury brands such as Sofitel, Pullman, and Fairmont.
At the Fairmont Ramla Riyadh, a flagship luxury property in the heart of Saudi Arabia, maintaining the perfect balance between guest comfort, operational reliability, and sustainability is paramount. Like many five-star hotels, the property faced the ongoing challenge of delivering world-class service while managing fluctuating occupancy, energy-intensive systems, and rising ESG expectations.
The Accor team faced a classic, frustrating scenario: they had made a significant capital investment in a major BMS upgrade, but the needle on energy consumption hadn’t moved. The new system was in place, but the promised savings and efficiencies were nowhere to be found. This created a major risk of the investment being seen as a sunk cost with no tangible return.
To address this, Accor partnered with Bueno Analytics to deploy a 12-week Building Optimisation pilot at Fairmont Ramla Riyadh. The goal was clear: uncover new efficiency opportunities within existing systems, demonstrate measurable savings, and build a scalable model for future deployment across the group’s portfolio.
The Journey / Solution Implementation – Connecting Every System, Every Space
The Fairmont Ramla pilot leveraged Bueno’s Building Optimisation module, an integrated platform combining Energy Management and Fault Detection & Diagnostics (FDD) into a unified solution.
Bueno connected directly to the hotel’s existing Building Management System (BMS) and sub-meters – creating a single data ecosystem across HVAC, hot water, lighting, elevators, and back-of-house systems.
Within days, Bueno’s platform began analysing thousands of data points in five-minute intervals, identifying inefficiencies and highlighting immediate opportunities to reduce energy waste while maintaining guest comfort.
By applying predictive rules and advanced analytics, Bueno helped Fairmont Ramla’s engineering team optimise HVAC scheduling, eliminate simultaneous heating and cooling, and adjust control parameters based on occupancy and ambient conditions. The result was a fully data-informed operational model that delivered savings without compromise.
Key Results / Outcomes – 12% Energy Savings in 12 Weeks
The results from the pilot were immediate and measurable. Within 12 weeks, the Fairmont Ramla Riyadh achieved a 12% verified reduction in total energy consumption, all while maintaining optimal indoor environmental quality (IEQ) across rooms and shared spaces.
Key performance outcomes included:
HVAC optimisation that reduced runtime without affecting comfort
Reduced peak energy demand and improved chiller sequencing
Enhanced operational awareness through automated fault detection
Continuous insight into system performance and maintenance priorities
These insights empowered the hotel’s operations team to focus on high-impact actions, significantly improving both energy efficiency and workflow efficiency.
“Good data creates great results. It starts with connectivity—being agnostic to vendors, BMSs, or equipment—and ends with understanding the building holistically. For hotels, that means looking at every space together to reduce costs and improve guest comfort.”
– Haibo Chen, Head of Global Services, Bueno Analytics
Strategic Impact – Beyond the Pilot: A Scalable Model for Accor
The Fairmont Ramla pilot proved that meaningful change can happen fast when data is unified and insights are actionable. Bueno’s unified analytics platform provided full visibility across systems, enabling the team to make smarter, faster decisions based on real evidence – not assumptions.
Unlike traditional FDD systems that operate in isolation, Bueno’s approach analyses every operational layer together – connecting HVAC, metering, lighting, and comfort data into one intelligent ecosystem. This holistic method revealed patterns invisible through standard diagnostics, delivering results that went beyond reactive maintenance.
The outcomes at Fairmont Ramla provide a blueprint for the entire Accor portfolio, where a consistent, vendor-agnostic analytics platform could replicate similar savings at scale. A 12% reduction per property across hundreds of hotels globally represents millions in annual energy and maintenance savings – while enhancing guest experience and sustainability credentials.
For Accor, the project validated the power of partnering with a team that understands both the complexity of hospitality and the importance of seeing the bigger picture: a single, scalable data platform capable of holding and processing everything together to deliver real, actionable results beyond traditional FDD.
Next Steps – Lessons From Riyadh
Following the success of the Riyadh pilot, Accor and Bueno are now evaluating wider deployment across Fairmont, Pullman, and Sofitel properties to accelerate energy efficiency and decarbonisation goals.
The next phase aims to embed analytics within Accor’s global marketplace and sustainability roadmap — ensuring every hotel benefits from near real-time performance visibility, data driven maintenance, and continuous optimisation.
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