Protocol for supporting Romanian hotel industry to practice responsible tourism signed

Bureau Veritas and the Romanian Hotel Industry Federation (FIHR) on Wednesday launched a health safety standard to support the hotel and restaurant industry to show compliance with best practices in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus, informs a company statement sent to AGERPRES. Certification for this standard as well as labelling as a "Safe Site" is available to all FIHR members, based on the protocol signed by the Federation and Bureau Veritas. According to the same source, the health safety standard is designed to certify that safety procedures and proper cleaning and disinfection protocols have been followed, with hotels and restaurants to be thus able to reopen in safer conditions. The "Safe Site" label will be awarded after an audit that will verify compliance with legal regulations as well as the implementation of best practices in Covid-19 prevention. The health safety standard will cover both accommodation and catering and will establish health safety standards applicable voluntarily to all FIHR member hotels. The concrete result of this effort is an operational guide made available to all stakeholders in the hotel industry, which will allow them to rigorously apply the recommendations of the authorities (World Health Organization, Ministry of Health, etc.), both in the spaces meant for customers and in offices and catering spaces. "For almost 200 years, Bureau Veritas has had a mission to shape a world based on trust. With this standard, today, we have the ability to meet people's new expectations for health and safety in tourism. The standard, developed together with the FIHR, will contribute to increasing the trust in the services of hotels and restaurants in Romania (...)," said Alexandru Vidu, Country Chief Executive of Bureau Veritas Romania. The Romanian Hotel Industry Federation is the first employer organization in Romanian tourism and the most representative in the hotel industry, by turnover and number of employees, bringing together 4 of the top 5 hotel companies in Romania by turnover, being present nationally in 31 of cities and accumulating about 10,000 rooms in member hotel properties. FIHR is an observer member of HOTREC, a founding member of APT (Alliance for Tourism) and a member of the Concordia Employers' Confederation. "Through this initiative, we want to provide answers to what our industry needs to do to comply with the rules needed for safe tourism, but also to implement new solutions, adapted to the new conditions in which tourism units operate. All of this to reduce the risks of infection in our industry and, especially, to make tourists aware of what we do to gain their confidence that we practice safe tourism, responsible tourism," underlined Calin Ile, FIHR head. Bureau Veritas, a world leader in testing, inspection and certification services, has offices in 140 countries, more than 70,000 employees worldwide and more than 400,000 companies in its portfolio. The group has over 120,000 certificates issued. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Mariana Nica; EN - editor: Cristina Zaharia)