“We have signed contracts for twenty or twenty-five years, which is why we go to church every Sunday to light a candle, hoping to be able to work normally for the next ten years. » Doubtless some candles were missed by Alexis Delaroff, director of the Accor group in Russia, who made these remarks in 2015 in Tyumen, in Western Siberia. He thought he had known everything, political, economic, military crises, and assured that only a war could push the French hotelier to leave the country.
The invasion of Ukraine and the ostracization of the Russian economy put a brutal brake on Accor’s local ambitions: its portfolio of 56 hotels today was to be enriched by 32 additional establishments by 2025 , which would have made it the first hotel chain in Russia. This market, far from being mature, represents barely 1% of its rooms worldwide, but Accor identifies it as a lever for growth, between low penetration of chains and development of a wealthy middle class. By spreading across the territory, the group is also making its many brands more visible to Russian travellers, who are increasingly numerous.
In recent years, the French chain has multiplied projects in association with local real estate magnates and, in the case of three hotels, with companies now subject to international sanctions. Three companies with which Accor has suspended its collaboration, specifies the chain to the World. A Fairmont in Moscow which was to open at the end of the year, a Moscow Mövenpick open in 2020 and another planned in Kamchatka will not be able to display this sign as it stands. One of the companies, the Sberbank bank, co-owner of the Fairmont, informed Accor of the definitive termination of the partnership.
Late reactions
Western hotel chains are careful, for the time being, to draw a line under thirty years of a slow establishment on Russian territory. It took two weeks after the Russian invasion for Accor to announce the suspension of planned openings and development projects in Russia. It was quickly imitated by Marriott, Hilton, IHG and Hyatt – which maintains a hotel opening in Rostov on 1er May – whose every release seems to have been copied from the neighbor. Radisson was more hesitant, not communicating until March 18.
Existing hotels remain in operation. The openings are, for the time being, simply postponed, and Accor retains its office and its sixty employees in Moscow. An in-between which revolts Mariana Oleskiv, director of the Agency for the development of tourism in Ukraine. By letter, twice, on March 14 and 18, she urged the channels to leave Russia.
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