French hotel group to cut 1,000 jobs

[PARIS] France's Accor, the world's sixth largest hotel chain, said on Tuesday it was slashing 1,000 jobs worldwide in a major cost cutting plan accelerated by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The group, which runs high-end chains such as Raffles and Sofitel and budget brands like Ibis, plans to cut costs by 200 million euros by 2022.

The pandemic has led to the closure of several Accor hotels around the world and 1,000 of the group's 18,000 employees will lose their jobs, financial chief Jean-Jacques Morin said.

"It is difficult to implement cost saving measures in our industry without it having an effect on staff," Morin said in a telephone interview.

"We will help them," he said, of the 1,000 people to be laid off.

Accor posted half-year net losses of 1.5 billion euros (S$2.33 billion) against profits of 141 million euros during the same period last year.

Turnover plunged to 917 million euros.

"The bad half-year results reflect the extraordinary environment linked to the coronavirus crisis," Mr Morin said.

"The shock that our industry is experiencing is both violent and unprecedented," Accor chief executive officer Sebastien Bazin said.

"The peak of the crisis is undoubtedly behind us, but the recovery will be gradual. Having taken these emergency steps, we must now finish the job from an asset-light model to a full asset-light company."

AFP