French hotel group Accor SA yesterday said that it was investigating claims that one of its Australian hotels was directing staff to check Aboriginal guests into poorer-quality rooms.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) said that an investigation uncovered a leaked e-mail advising staff at the Ibis Styles Alice Springs Oasis hotel to move people from “the communities” into one of six designated rooms.
The national broadcaster said that the term is used locally to refer to indigenous people living in remote communities outside of Alice Springs in northern Australia.
“Following an investigation released on the Ibis Styles Alice Springs Oasis, the Group has opened its own internal probe,” Accor said in a statement.
Accor, which operates worldwide with a portfolio that includes the Pullman, Raffles, Novotel and Mercure brands, said that it would take “prompt and decisive action in this case.”
“The group, which is present in 100 countries, has a diversity and inclusion policy that respects cultures, heritage and local law,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An unnamed staff member at the Australian hotel told the TV station that the profiling had happened hundreds of times since the directive was handed down in June last year, where anyone who “appeared Aboriginal” was given the “worse rooms.”
The broadcaster arranged two bookings at the ibis, one with Aboriginal guests and the other non-indigenous.
It found that both were being charged the same amount, but Aboriginal clients were directed to an inferior room, as suggested by the leaked e-mail.
The rooms were starkly different, with the Aboriginal group given the dirtier and less well-maintained accommodation, ABC said.
The report prompted the government to take its own action.
“That sort of behavior from Australian businesses is completely unacceptable,” Australian Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion told reporters on Friday.
He said that he was looking into the claims and Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act holds “serious compliances and sanctions.”
“Let’s have a look at the evidence, but that sounds very concerning to me,” Scullion said.
Aboriginal Australians make up about 3 percent of the total national population of 25 million, but remain the country’s most disadvantaged community.
Canberra has consistently fallen short on health and education measures to improve the livelihoods of Aboriginal people, after vowing to “close the gap” between indigenous Australians and the rest of the country more than a decade ago.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate for Aboriginal Australians is three to four times as high as the national average, while suicide rates for Aboriginal children are five times as high as among the rest of the population.
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