Respect host communities. Care for the most vulnerable. Protect local ecosystems. We foster sustainable social and economic development, and support communities, wherever our hotels are.
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100% 100%of our hotels engaged
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100% 100%our hotels against child sexual exploitation
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~7.4 ~7.4M. trees planted with our Plant for the Planet in 2021
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We do everything we can to benefit our host communities and local areas through our activities around the world.
We contribute substantially to social and economic development in our host countries by:
- creating jobs in our hotels,
- buying locally,
- paying our taxes.
This is what:
- local populations expect of us,
- our customers expect of us, as they agree that growing deep local roots is an important component in our social responsibility.
Our vision of positive hospitality goes even further.
As hospitality professionals, we are passionate about caring.
For our guests, of course, but also for the men and women around us.
Opening our hands, open our hearts and giving come naturally to us.
Doing that again and again, day after day, makes a positive difference around us.To paint a clearer picture
On average, around the world:
1
job in a Group hotel supports 4 jobs outside the Group (with our suppliers, public services, etc.)
70%
of the jobs our hotels support are based in host countries
83%
of the wealth our hotels create stays in host countries
Guests care about our local roots
48%
of our guests expect us to support local economies
42%
expect us to promote and protect local culture and heritage
36%
expect us to support local communities
28%
expect us to partner local NGOs
What we are doing already
We are a global Group, but most of our initiatives are local.
As our employees are part of their local communities, they are more willing and able to make a difference in them than anyone else.
Most of our hotels are heavily involved in voluntary community work and social care.
Their initiatives often revolve around hotels and restaurants (for example, employees donate food, train poorly-qualified job-seekers to work in the hospitality sector, or recycle products to help people in need).
Support from Accor Heartist Solidarity
Since 2008, Accor Heartist Solidarity, our Group's endowment fund, hasbeen involved alongside our employees. Each year, it provides financial and technical support to some thirty local projects carried out by our hotels, our headquarters, in partnership with local associations and NGOs. Our mobilization: fight against the economic and social exclusion of people in great precariousness through professional integration.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ACCOR SOLIDARITY
+450
projects supported by Accor Heartist Solidarity
20,000
Accor team members involved
230,000
direct and indirect beneficiaries
recycling of used soaps
Our hotels in several countries, including Thailand, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Vietnam, have joined Soap For Hope. The goal: recycle soap bars that guests haven’t finished. Diversey, our Group’s main supplier of eco-certified cleaning products, trains communities to recycle soap through this charity. Then they give the recycled soap bars to the disadvantaged.
each month, one community initiative per hotel (mexico)
The teams at our hotels in Mexico, have been getting together to work on community initiatives once a month since 2011: they have helped build homes for the poor, run toy drives for orphanages, and more. The teams at our hotels in the United States and Canada have decided to do the same and work on a new project in their country every month.
REDISTRIBUTION of buffets leftovers (BANGKOK)
Eight of our hotels in Bangkok, have set up a Food for Thought operation. Twice a week, our teams gather buffets leftovers and give them to Good Shepherd Sisters, a charity working with children and women living in shantytowns. Volunteers from our hotels in Thailand take care of the logistics.
What we plan to do over the next five years
Reassert that hospitality and generosity go hand in hand.
We plan to do more to encourage employees to get involved in local initiatives and will commend them for doing so.
That is why we are once again placing community initiatives at the core of our approach to a more sustainable business model.
As we expect 100% of our hotels to get involved, our hotels' roadmap, encourages them to work on a variety of community work and social care initiatives, such as:- opening up to the local area and working with nearby businesses,
- supporting the communities around them,
- donating products reaching the end of their lifecycles so they can be reused or recycled,
- donating leftover food,
- organizing fundraisers for community and social outreach projects.
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2 million girls and boys under 18 are sexually exploited around the world every year.*
Because millions of children are in danger.
Because this practice cuts across geographic, social and cultural boundaries.
Because it can occur in our hotels.
Because we are the world’s largest hotel operator, and are in more than 110 countries.
It is our moral and legal duty to protect children from abuse.
Our host communities are naturally counting on us.
And so are our guests: 68% of them agree that protecting minors from sexual exploitation is extremely important in hotels.* SOURCE: UNICEF
What we are doing already
Accor pioneered the fight against the sexual exploitation of children in the hospitality sector.
We were one of the first to take a stand against this scourge.
In 2001, we were the first hospitality group to partner ECPAT, an international NGO at the forefront of the struggle to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children. In 2002, we started setting up programs to train our employees to deal with this issue.
Our initiatives are based on the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism.
1,200 travel and tourism professionals in 46 countries have signed it. Companies sign it in each of their host countries. By end-2015, 38 Accor host countries had signed it.
This Code of Conduct requires us to take a variety of measures to fight against the sexual exploitation of children. For example:- train employees,
- inform travelers,
- include clauses to this effect in contracts with suppliers.
WATCH: keeping our eyes open
WATCH stands for We Act Together for Children.
It is the program we introduced in 2014 to step up our efforts to eradicate the sexual exploitation of children.NGOs, children’s rights organizations, police services and embassy networks are on deck to respond swiftly and in sync if our hotels alert them. WATCH is tailored to the local situation and to the extent of the scourge in each country.
WATCH provides hotels with awareness-raising movies, training modules, dos-and-don’ts sheets and various other tools to:
- keep employees alert at all times,
- help them to respond to dubious situations,
- raise guest awareness.
Specifically, if an employee realizes or suspects that a child is being sexually exploited, he or she informs the hotel’s general manager or manager on duty, who assesses the situation.
If the suspicions are confirmed, or the situation is not clarified, the manager warns the police and they promptly take over. The child is entrusted to local child-protection organizations.What we plan to do over the next five years
Put WATCH at the center of our drive to protect children.
Efforts to eradicate the sexual exploitation of children can be nothing but relentless.
That is why this commitment will continue to rank among our top priorities over the next five years.
Starting in 2016, we included a message about WATCH in the booking confirmation e-mails we send customers, to enhance awareness of this issue. We will also step up our partnership with ECPAT and the Code of Conduct in order to tackle these issues ever more effectively.