Accor, the hospitality group behind brands such as Raffles, Sofitel, Rixos, Novotel and Ibis, is putting plans in place to reassure tourists considering travelling once current global movement restrictions are lifted.
The French hospitality group has partnered with Bureau Veritas – the specialist in testing, inspection and certification – to launch a quality assurance label based on sanitary measures that will be given to hotels and resorts deemed virus-free.
The virus-free certification will be developed with experts and rolled out in Accor’s French properties first, followed by its European properties. But it could also eventually be applied to other chains and independent hotels.
How does it work?
The aim is that travellers will be able to search hotels, resorts and restaurants on a dedicated website to check whether a property has been deemed safe, before making a booking or visiting.
How this label is granted, and the safety measures and checks that will be undertaken haven’t been announced yet; but it is being developed in partnership with doctors and epidemiologists.
“This label will contribute to the hospitality and restaurant industry reopening with confidence,” said Jacques Pommeraud, chief executive of Bureau Veritas Africa and France.
The final points of the project are being finalised by Accor and Bureau Veritas, which are set to share details with French health and tourism authorities – and want them to be involved in validating their recommendations.
These standards will apply to all guest areas in hotels and resorts, and also to back office and catering spaces.
Road map back to business
Concrete details will then be shared with relevant ministries and governments across Europe.
“Today, more than ever, our employees, customers and partners need to be reassured of our ability to offer them the best welcome possible,” said Franck Gervais, chief executive of Europe Accor.
“As the European leader in hospitality, it is our duty to anticipate needs and respond to health and safety requirements by adhering to the highest standards.”
Accor will also create an operational guide garnered from the project that will be available to any hoteliers who want to see it.
In a sign of how badly the hospitality industry has been hit, earlier this month it was revealed that Accor had closed two thirds of its hotels and furloughed, or temporarily laid off, 75 per cent of its staff.
The company closed more than 3,000 of the group’s 5,000 hotels and made more than 200,000 staff temporarily redundant, but at the time chief executive Sebastien Bazin told Bloomberg Television he intended to reopen all of the properties and re-employ the workers as soon as possible.
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Major honours
ARSENAL
BARCELONA
- La Liga - 2013
- Copa del Rey - 2012
- Fifa Club World Cup - 2011
CHELSEA
- Premier League - 2015, 2017
- FA Cup - 2018
- League Cup - 2015
SPAIN
- World Cup - 2010
- European Championship - 2008, 2012
The specs: 2018 Nissan Patrol Nismo
Price: base / as tested: Dh382,000
Engine: 5.6-litre V8
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 428hp @ 5,800rpm
Torque: 560Nm @ 3,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.7L / 100km
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Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
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Total eligible population
About 57.5 million people
51.1 million received a jab
6.4 million have not
Where are the unvaccinated?
England 11%
Scotland 9%
Wales 10%
Northern Ireland 14%
Sting & Shaggy
44/876
(Interscope)
The%20specs
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The biog
Family: He is the youngest of five brothers, of whom two are dentists.
Celebrities he worked on: Fabio Canavaro, Lojain Omran, RedOne, Saber Al Rabai.
Where he works: Liberty Dental Clinic
Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Profile
Co-founders of the company: Vilhelm Hedberg and Ravi Bhusari
Launch year: In 2016 ekar launched and signed an agreement with Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. In January 2017 ekar launched in Dubai in a partnership with the RTA.
Number of employees: Over 50
Financing stage: Series B currently being finalised
Investors: Series A - Audacia Capital
Sector of operation: Transport
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sarfira
Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal
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Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
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Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
The First Monday in May
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Starring: Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, John Paul Gaultier, Rihanna
Three stars
