Choice Hotels International (NYSE: CHH) announced on 1 October 2026 that its Chief Human Resources Officer, Patrick Cimerola, will retire at the end of 2026, after 25 years with the group. His departure comes a month after Dominic Dragisich was confirmed as President and Chief Executive Officer. The franchisor is launching a comprehensive search for his successor.

The subject since June of a preliminary investigation by France's National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) into suspected organised corruption, Malakoff Humanis is seeing pressure mount on its chief executive, Thomas Saunier. According to Mediapart, Jean-Pierre Thomas's consultancy firm allegedly received more than €22 million in commissions from asset managers selected by the group. The case directly concerns the hotel and restaurant sector, as Malakoff Humanis, together with Klesia, provides health and welfare cover for the HCR branch and funds its HCR Bien-Être social support scheme.

On 29 September 2026, the consultancy Reversens published a national survey of 5,800 working people in France on harassment and hostile behaviour at work. The hotel and restaurant sector emerges as one of the most exposed, but also as the one in which employees are most reluctant to report a serious situation. This twofold finding raises direct questions for the sector's general management and HR teams about the effectiveness of their whistleblowing and reporting systems.

On 1 January 2027, GHR Paris Île-de-France, the leading hospitality employers' organisation in the Paris region, will become Union CHR Paris Île-de-France and join Umih as an associate union. The move gives the sector's largest national employers' organisation the added weight of a body representing 60,000 employees, in the run-up to France's 2027 presidential election.

Barry Sternlicht, Chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, will receive the ALIS Lifetime Achievement Award and the Shatterproof Hospitality Hero Award on 25 January 2027 in Los Angeles, presented respectively by the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) and the non-profit Shatterproof. The dual honour recognises a career spanning more than three decades that has shaped the global hotel industry, from the founding of Starwood Hotels & Resorts to the structuring of investments exceeding $280 billion.

On 1 April 2026, France's Cour de cassation confirmed that a dismissal letter signed by the HR manager of another company within the employer's group was without real and serious cause, in the absence of proof of her authority over the subsidiary concerned. The Court also partially quashed the ruling on a separate point, leaving the door open to additional sums. The case involves an automotive distribution group, but the principle established is directly relevant to hotel groups, which are often structured with multiple subsidiaries and shared HR functions.

🔎 Today's trend: hospitality caught between labour tensions and reinvention. From Scotland to the Côte d'Azur, restructurings and workplace disputes are multiplying, while Lyon, Saint Lucia and the Algarve show a sector that continues to innovate and reposition itself.

Marco Benvenuti, co-founder of Duetto and creator of the Open Pricing method, passed away on 28 August 2026 in San Francisco following a three-year battle with cancer. He founded the company in 2010 with Patrick Bosworth before helping build it into one of the leading revenue management software providers for the global hotel industry.

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Tourism has opened public consultation on draft regulations setting minimum staff-to-room ratios by property category, rising to three employees per room for luxury hotels. Due to take effect on 1 January 2027, the text goes well beyond service quality alone: it forms part of the Kingdom's strategy to build a national middle class and grow the domestic labour market.

The catering and facilities group plans to eliminate 963 positions, or 4% of its French workforce, along with a further 134 head office roles, amid intensifying competition.

A decree published on 7 May 2026 substantially overhauls the rules governing compensation for victims of workplace accidents and occupational illnesses from 1 November 2026. For hospitality HR directors, a sector particularly exposed to physical strain linked to maintenance, housekeeping and kitchen roles, this reform represents a major regulatory issue.

Fifty years after staffing the front desk of the Hong Kong Hilton, Terence Ronson, Rajeev Ratti and Niale McLoughlin have published their memoir, "The Lobby Boys". The book recounts a five-star hotel run entirely on paper, and asks what AI-driven hospitality still owes to human judgement.