Accor releases socio-economic footprint findings

AccorHotels releases the findings from its first socio-economic footprint study.
This study is embedded in the group?s corporate social responsibility drive, and its goal is to quantify and analyse its activities? ripple effects throughout worldwide and local economies.
The findings will help the group home in on more effective levers to:
– Strengthen the positive impacts in the communities around its hotels; and
– Limit any negative impacts that may arise from its development.
The study, which encompasses the group?s 3,600 hotels (all management systems combined), is based on its 2013 financial statements and looks at the three main financial flows from the group into the economy, namely:
– Hotel expenditure (primarily purchases from suppliers);
– The wages that AccorHotels brand hotels pay their employees; and
– The taxes resulting from the Group?s activities.
The method used does not include the local expenditure of guests staying in the hotels. Based on these flows, it quantifies three types of impact:
– Direct: the value added by the group and the presence of AccorHotels employees around the world;
– Indirect: the economic ripple effects of its purchases, expenditure or investments; and
– Induced: the activities supported by the wages and taxes paid by AccorHotels or its suppliers (household consumption and public spending).
Two key findings:
1. AccorHotels sustains around 880,000 jobs (direct, indirect and induced). Over and above the jobs revolving directly around its core business, the group?s activity has created or supports some 700,000 indirect and induced jobs around the globe, in three main sectors: corporate services (laundry, cleaning, security); agriculture (as a result of its F&B activity); and public services (education, healthcare and transportation).
Study findings suggest that every job created in an AccorHotels brand supports more than four other jobs around the world.
2. AccorHotels principally creates wealth in its host countries as the group contributes ?22 billion to world GDP, which is the equivalent to that of a country like Cyprus.
This contribution encompasses the value added directly by the group, plus the value generated by the activities of its suppliers, by household consumption and by public spending.
The economic impacts from the Group?s activities correlate with its local presence.
France, Germany, Australia, Great Britain and Brazil, for example, enjoy substantial portions of this wealth.
This said, in emerging countries like India and Ivory Coast, where the group has a smaller presence, a very large share of their contributions to GDP remains firmly rooted in the host country (close to 90 percent).
The study is available for both the industry and the general public on Planet 21 Research, a shared knowledge platform on sustainable development.