Accor and Bureau Veritas, company providing testing, inspection and certification, have joined forces to develop a label designed to certify that the appropriate safety standards and cleaning protocols have been achieved to allow businesses to reopen.

The label will cover both accommodation and catering and will set the sanitary standards applicable to all the Group’s hotels as well as to other chains and independent hotels. The project was carried out in partnership with doctors and epidemiologists and has been developed in collaboration with Accor owners and trade associations, such as UMIH, GNC, and GNI.

The project will be shared next week within Alliance France Tourisme as well as with the relevant ministries (French Ministries of Tourism, Health and Labor) so that they are actively involved in – and validate – the recommended standards. Concrete proposals will be submitted, in France and subsequently in Europe, to the various governments, relevant ministries and committees for the easing of lockdown measures.

Concretely, the output of this effort will be an operational guide made available to all stakeholders in the hospitality industry, enabling them to rigorously apply the health and safety recommendation of authorities (WHO, Health Ministry etc), both in guest services spaces and in the back office and catering spaces. European customers will be able to check on a dedicated Bureau Veritas website before they book their next stay whether any hotel or restaurant has been certified or not by Bureau Veritas.