The hotels of the Accor group in France will start welcoming “ tonight ” patients with Covid-19, announced its CEO, interviewed this morning on France Inter. " We already have more than 300 volunteer hotels to support the medical world, " announced Sébastien Bazin. " It was decided yesterday. With the hospitals of Aubervilliers, Bichat and la Salpêtrière, as of this evening, we are making rooms available for people suffering from the virus and asymptomatic, but who are contaminating. We already have 300 volunteer hotels , ”he explained. The rooms will be billed " at cost ", that is to say " between 30 and 50 euros ".
Hard hit by the coronavirus crisis, the Accor group shut down two thirds of its hotels. In France, 300 of its 1,700 hotels are still occupied for truckers and nursing staff, explained Sébastien Bazin. “ It's a drama. Accor will get by (...), we have 2.5 billion euros in cash (...), but tens of thousands of independent operators cannot afford to wait. "
Read also: Coronavirus: Accor creates a support fund with its dividends
In 10 days, Accor said it had put 220,000 people on partial unemployment. Abroad, employees “ went from 100% to 20% of salary. We set up a support fund of 70 million euros for them. We also gave up the dividends, "said the CEO of the hotel group.
"Terribly annoyed"
Sébastien Bazin said he was " terribly annoyed " by the extension of confinement and measures that will affect the hotel industry even after May 11. " I was terribly annoyed when I told myself that we cannot spoil this tourist season, but we are not going to be furious and try to intervene with concrete proposals. My wish: I hope that we can be authorized to reopen reservations from June 1st. It is high time to project ourselves forward! "