Accor plans to provide certified virus-free hotel stays in Europe

Accor, the hospitality group behind brands such as for example Raffles, Sofitel, Rixos, Novotel and Ibis, is putting plans in destination to reassure tourists considering travelling once current global movement restrictions are lifted.

The French hospitality group has partnered with Bureau Veritas - professionnals in testing, inspection and documentation - to launch an excellent assurance label based on sanitary measures which will be given to hotels and resorts deemed virus-free.

The virus-free qualification will be developed with experts, and will be rolled out in Accor's French hotels first, and its European properties, but may possibly also eventually connect with other chains and independent hotels.

How does it work?

Desire to is that travellers will be able to search hotels, resorts and restaurants on a dedicated website to check on whether a house has been deemed safe, prior to making a booking or visiting.

How this label is granted, and the safety precautions and checks that'll be undertaken haven't been announced yet; nonetheless it is being developed in partnership with doctors and epidemiologists.

"This label will donate to the hospitality and restaurant industry reopening with confidence," explained Jacques Pommeraud, CEO Bureau Veritas Africa and France.

The ultimate points of the project are being finalised by Accor and Bureau Veritas who are set to share details with French health and tourism authorities, plus they want them to be engaged in validating the recommended standards.

These standards will apply to all guest areas in hotels and resorts, and to back office and catering spaces.

Concrete details will be distributed to relevant ministries and governments across Europe. "Today, as part of your, our employees, customers and partners need to be reassured of our capability to offer them the very best welcome possible. As the European leader in hospitality, it really is our duty to anticipate needs and react to health and safety requirements by sticking with the highest standards.” said Franck Gervais, CEO of Europe Accor.

Accor will also create an operational guide garnered from the project, which will be open to any hoteliers that are looking to see it.

In a sign of how badly hit the hospitality industry has been, earlier this month it had been revealed that Accor had closed two-thirds of its hotels and furloughed, or temporarily let go, 75 % of its staff.

The move saw the company close more than 3,000 of the group's 5,000 hotels and make a lot more than 200,000 staff temporarily redundant, but at that time leader Sebastien Bazin told Bloomberg Television he intended to reopen each of the properties and re-employ the staff as quickly as possible.