Paris (AFP)
The French hotel giant Accor announced Monday a savings plan that will result in the loss of 1,000 jobs worldwide, after a significant loss in the first half due to the health crisis.
The group, which has brands such as Ibis, Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and Pullman, and had been forced to close a large part of its hotels around the world for several months following the Covid-19 pandemic, will put in places a savings plan aimed at reducing its recurring costs by 200 million euros by 2022, according to a press release.
This plan will result in the elimination of a thousand jobs in the world, out of a total of 18,000, said the deputy general manager of the group, Jean-Jacques Morin, during a telephone press conference.
"It's difficult" to make a savings plan "in a business around men without having an effect around staff," said Morin. "1,000 people will have to reposition themselves, we will help them", he added, referring in particular to the establishment of training.
These job cuts will "affect all the entities of the group," said the deputy director, for whom it is still too early to give geographical indications.
According to results published at the same time on Tuesday, the world's sixth largest hotel group fell into the red in the first half with a net loss of 1.5 billion euros, mainly due to write-downs in the value of some of its assets due to the pandemic.
He made a profit of 141 million euros over the same period last year.
As for the group's turnover, it was halved to 917 million euros.
"The poor performance of the first half reflects the extraordinary environment linked to the coronavirus crisis," commented Mr. Morin.
Despite this difficult context, the group opened 86 hotels, representing 12,000 rooms, over the semester, he said. This brings its global hotel base to 747,805 rooms in 5,099 hotels.
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