Preserving Operational Freedom: Position on Subcontracting

HOTREC, the umbrella association of hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés across Europe, represents 47 national associations in 36 countries. The European hospitality sector consists of 2 million businesses supporting over 10 million jobs. Almost all our hospitality establishments are SMEs and 9 in 10 are micro-enterprises, playing an essential role in sustaining local communities. Tourism and hospitality are vital drivers of the economy, contributing around 10% of the EU’s GDP.

In recent years, the sector has shown resilience. However, EU inflation levels remain high, while food and energy costs continue to increase. At the same time, the uncertain and turbulent geopolitical situation deters growth and competitiveness, especially in countries bordering Ukraine. Since the pandemic, the sector continues to face not only skills shortages, but also labour shortages.

HOTREC believes that a competitive working environment will create the conditions to protect employees, make businesses thrive, and deliver quality service to clients while allowing innovation to flourish. For all these reasons, we support the Competitiveness Compass, the new EU Single Market Strategy, and the Union of Skills initiative.

Subcontracting in the hospitality industry involves delegating tasks and services to external providers, allowing accommodation establishments to focus on core operations such as guest experience and management. 

Our priorities on subcontracting are as follows:

• Hospitality businesses must be free to decide how to organise their services. Any other option would hinder innovation, flexibility and productivity, and may even risk business viability.
• A full chain liability is not proportionate. National legislation already exists to protect the interests of workers and businesses.
• No legislation is needed on subcontracting at EU level.
• To avoid any possible abuse, solutions can be found through enforcing current legislation and encouraging labour inspections.

Full Position Paper on Subcontracting