Brexit, working conditions and low pay: An inside look at Europe’s hotel staffing crisis

euronews.com:

“It’s been a traumatic couple of years.” That’s how the CEO of a hotel loyalty programme sums up the COVID era. “But things are looking great now,” another Chief Executive Officer chimes in.

Or are they? Just as hotel occupancy started to recover at the start of this year, another crisis hit: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Flight restrictions, inflation, rising interest rates, rising food prices and supply chain issues all followed. Add to this airline and airport strikes - both gateways to holidays - and you probably wouldn’t want to be a hotel CEO right now.

There’s really only one item on this long list of challenges that hotel leaders have complete control over: how they treat their staff. They can put up their rates to weather all the financial instability and most seem to be coping with supply chain issues. But the responsibility for making hotel jobs fulfilling and fairly paid lands squarely at their feet.

It can be tricky to get a full and frank picture of how an industry is faring. But a gathering of fifteen CEOs of some of the world’s biggest hotel groups is as close as I’m likely to get to the truth.

Their companies are all members of the Global Hotel Alliance (GHA), essentially the SkyTeam or Star Alliance of the hotel industry. 21 million members earn ‘Discovery’ loyalty points by staying at the 800 GHA hotels spread across 100 countries. So insights from their CEOs should be a reliable window into how hotels are doing.

Hotels want to paint a rosy picture to customers, of course, but one large hotel group has been candid. Accor, owner of brands like Mercure, ibis and Fairmont, needs 35,000 workers globally, CEO Sebastien Bazin said last month.

I’ve heard about a large hotel in London that currently has one floor