Accor's internal and external investigations into child exploitation and human trafficking found its protection procedures "do not have any systemic shortcomings," Accor chief sustainability officer Coline Pont told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting on Wednesday.
The audits were launched in March following allegations leveled in a report by U.S.-based short seller Grizzly Research. The audit objectives, Pont said, were to evaluate Accor's current practices and procedures and scrutinize the methodology behind Grizzly's claims.
For its external investigation, Accor worked with global business ethics consultancy Good Corp. in a review that covered 255 hotels across 56 countries via four booking methods and included onsite visits to 88 properties in 16 markets. In that review, Pont said 25 hotels sent commercial proposals without flagging warning signs, 9 failed to respond to red flags and 12 took steps deemed insufficient.
"We are taking these observations very seriously and we will fully include them in our plan of action," Pont told shareholders.
In its deeper internal investigation of Grizzly's methodology, Pont said the short seller—which said 40 of 250 Accor properties complied with reservation requests designed to raise red flags—miscounted instances where staff cut off suspicious inquiries or requested identification as accepted bookings. The sending of price lists with no confirmed reservation similarly were mischaracterized, Pont said. Of 197 hotels examined internally, only 12 sent sales replies without required prerequisites.
"This figure, I think, shows that there is a gap between the allegations and the reality in the field," Pont said.
Moving forward, Pont said, Accor has a three-part action plan: mandatory staff training with a focus on real-world scenarios, stricter contractual standards and sanctions for noncompliant owners and deeper coordination with non-governmental organizations, including End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT) and industry groups American Hotel & Lodging Association and World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance.
Grizzly didn't immediately comment on Accor's statement.