Ukrainian hoteliers call for big hotel groups to stop doing business in Russia

Ukrainian tourism associations have described announcements by the big hotel groups that they will be suspending new hotel developments in Russia as "an empty and cynical gesture".

The Ukrainian Hotel & Resort Association (UHRA) and State Agency for Tourism Development (SATD) sent two separate letters to the chief executives for the seven top international hotel groups represented in Russia on 14 March and 18 March 2022.

They said that being reactive to sanctions imposed on them by governments was not enough and amounted to "token statements", appealing to operators to withdraw their brands from Russia.

Groups including Hyatt, Accor and Radisson have announced they will suspend future investments, development activity and hotel openings in Russia.

IHG, Hilton and Marriott International have also closed their corporate offices in Moscow but said they would continue to support staff. Wyndham said it would be donating profits from business operations in Russia to humanitarian relief efforts and "monitoring the situation as it evolves".

The UHRA and SATD said: "For a long time, the hotel industry has claimed to be an industry of people and communities, to hold the highest universal values of integrity and respect.

"They claim to enshrine them in their CSR (corporate social responsibility) charters. Yet today when the worst atrocities in Europe since the genocides of WW2 are being committed, this mask has slipped, exposed in their inertia and inaction, that for the global hotel operator's shareholder value surpasses human morals and dead Ukrainian citizens."

One of the letters said: "We do not wish to coerce, but we cannot sit by and let the inaction of hotel operators who continue to try and sit on the fence and effectively support the regime of Putin… We do not want to get angry at hotel operators; we do not want to feel compelled to call for hotel brand boycotts. The anger should be collectively fixed in one clear direction."

Online travel agents including Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Tripadvisor and TUI have terminated their operations within Russia.

Other hospitality companies such as McDonald's, Compass Group and Jamie Oliver Group have also paused operations or pulled out of the country altogether.

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