The 22nd annual Global Summit of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), commenced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, revealing the world's first global travel and tourism climate footprint.

The project will enable the WTTC to trace and update the travel and tourism industry's environmental impact across 185 countries each year.

The industry has been estimated to produce about 11 percent of all emissions according to previous numbers, but the new data shows that in 2019, the industry contributed to 8.1 percent of global emissions.

CGTN sat down with Sebastien Bazin, CEO of Accor hotels, to discuss how the hotel industry is doing post pandemic and how the group intends to achieve its green objectives.

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"The Hotel industry is doing extremely well, better than we all expected. Stronger, faster, and probably it is going to stay [like this] for 2023," said Bazin. 

'We've been on our knees'

He acknowledged that staff shortages have been a challenge for the industry post pandemic.

"At Accor, we're missing 40,000 people, like 15 percent of the workforce. I need to get them back," said Bazin, adding that bringing people back will require the industry to offer flexible working conditions that they benefited from during the pandemic and that staff cannot be expected to work long, unsocial hours on a regular basis.

"We've been increasing salaries, the low paid salaries by more than 12 percent. We can't afford much more. We've been on our knees for two and a half years," explained Bazin. 

The executive also shared the group's commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and reducing them by half by 2030.

"It has a lot to do with the material you're going to be using when building a hotel. We're doing quite a bit on biodiversity, which is food waste, reducing it by 30 percent and also local procurement…. So the planet is a must and… it cannot be gimmicky."

One step that the group has taken to reduce food waste is to not offer buffet breakfast at big conventions, reducing food waste by 50 percent.

'A lot to learn' from China

Bazin then went on to highlight the growing trend of domestic tourism in Europe since COVID-19 restrictions have been eased, just like "95 percent of the customers in America travel within America." This is giving tourists the opportunity to discover new places closer to home.

"We had 130 million Chinese travelers [before the pandemic]. Of course we miss them but did we see the impact on European cities? No. So it's being buffered by the domestic population," he explained. 

Bezin shared his optimism for the industry's growth in China but cautioned it must not be rushed. For a successful collaboration with their Chinese partners, he stressed it is important to be "super respectful because they know their market so much better than I do."

"They're going to be larger than America in terms of hospitality, in only a matter of 5 to 10 years," he added. "I admire Chinese hotel companies. There's a lot of things to learn from them."