Accor has a new deal in place to further its goals in environmental, social and governance across its hotel portfolio.
The Paris-based global hotel firm announced it has signed a three-year partnership agreement with the World Monuments Fund to help protect cultural heritage, promote tourism sustainability and foster community resilience.
No details have been given on individual partnership initiatives, but Accor and the WMF said the collaboration “will harness their complementary expertise, resources, and global reach to deliver projects that enhance destinations, offer meaningful connections with communities, and build long-term resilience."
In a news release, Accor and WMF said they would “aim to distribute tourism flows, showcasing monuments and heritage places beyond traditional tourist hot spots, and helping new destinations emerge through thoughtful, sustainable development.”
Accor has approximately 5,700 hotels in more than 110 countries and approximately 10,000 food-and-beverage outlets.
The WMF has brought its science and safeguards to more than 700 sites in 112 countries adjudged to be of global cultural worth and significance.
The WMF’s work already includes community training, government lobbying and partnerships, and initiatives to offset mass tourism.
Two examples of work the WMF has conducted are in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, and Monte Alegre, Brazil.
The WMF was the first Western organization to survey Angkor Wat, the famous temple complex, after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Restoration of the temple complex, which started in the late 1980s, could only be conducted following training and the full inclusion of local communities.
WMF's work to restore Angkor Wat is critical, notably due to an increase in visitors to the site of the ancient temple. B2B Cambodia reported that 2.2 million international visitors and about 4 million domestic visitors traveled to Angkor Wat in 2019.
Today, the number of tourists who visit Angkor Wat has not reached that pre-pandemic high, but 798,069 international visitors traveled to the complex in 2023. In the first six months of this year, 521,950 tourists visited the temple site.
In Monte Alegre State Park — a 9,090-acre area of the Amazon rainforest that contains priceless examples of wildlife and ancient rock art — the WMF’s efforts to preserve cultural heritage initiates was met with skepticism by indigenous populations and challenges from human claims of land ownership and use.
Climate change and the pandemic have also raised concern and reduced visitor numbers and income, income that is needed for all sites and attractions to help foster care and balance the sustainability and local income sources, education and welfare.
Hotel firms increasingly are conscious of the global footprint they help to create. In April, the World Travel & Tourism Council stated that the travel and tourism industries are projected to contribute an “an all-time high of $11.1 trillion” in 2024. That is an increase from the previous high in 2019 of “$770 billion … stamping [the sector’s] authority as a global economic powerhouse, generating $1 in every $10 worldwide.”
The WTTC added that “by 2034, the sector will supercharge the global economy with a staggering $16 trillion, making up 11.4% of the entire economic landscape.”