To celebrate International Women's Day 2016 today, Accorhotels has launched an initiative to champion women across its hotel brands, with a commitment to 35 per cent of hotel managers being women by the end of 2017.

Accor is one of 10 companies selected by UN Women as one of the champion corporations of the HeForShe – IMPACT 10x10x10 pilot initiative, because of its commitment to gender parity and to changing mentalities in the hospitality sector to promote women’s empowerment.

As part of its initiative, AccorHotels has also pledged to reduce the pay gap between men and women at the Paris head office and in three other countries by the end of 2017, and to sensitise and motivate male employees in favour of gender diversity. It hopes to have 50,000 male employees involved as HeForShe champions by the end of 2017.

Accor operates Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel and ibis brands, among others, and has around 3,800 properties – nearly 500 of which are luxury and upscale. It is in the process of buying FRHI – the owner of Raffles, Fairmont and Swissotel – for approximately US$2.9bn (€2.6bn, £1.9bn) in cash and shares.