Sun, sea and slavery?

Most of us just want to forget the world's problems when we book into a hotel. But what are the dirty secrets behind our holiday hideaways? Sarah Irving guides us round a report originally commissioned by the Co-operative Group as part of its ethical procurement programme.

The companies on the table all operate hotel chains in the UK, but most have attracted criticisms for their operations elsewhere in the world.

Paradise Lost

Holiday destinations are often sold as an opportunity to spend some time in paradise, but the activities of hotel chains around the world sometimes do more to damage the world’s most beautiful places than preserve them.

The Hilton Hotel chain has come under attack by environmental groups in the Caribbean for the impacts of its development on Bimini Island in the Bahamas. Hilton has been accused of damaging the island’s mangrove swamps and coastline and threatening endangered species. According to campaign group Tourism Concern, the construction company at Bimini has refused to release the Environmental Impact Assessment for the site, and community leaders have staged protests against the damage being inflicted and the companies’ failure to live up to promises of jobs for local people.(1)

Hilton Hotels is also one of the global chains involved in the Los Micos leisure development at Tela Bay in Honduras. The project, funded by international financial organisations and including huge hotels and golf courses, was said by environmental group Global Exchange to be sited within the buffer zone of a National Park and to threaten fragile wetlands.(2) Leaders of the local Garifuna community and their children were also said to have been threatened at gunpoint into signing away land rights for the projects, and human rights groups allege that the murders in spring 2006 of other Garifuna leaders may be linked to their opposition to the development.(3)

Slavery in the sun

The abuses continue once hotels are built. According to Guyonne James of Tourism Concern, the hotel sector is characterised by “low wages, long hours and no contracts.” She goes on to say that “although Tourism Concern concentrates on majority world countries where there is no legislative framework to protect the environment or workers, many of the problems are the same in Europe and in Britain, even though the laws should protect people. The people you find doing the cleaning, cooking and gardening are the poorest and most desperate, because they will accept these poor conditions. In some countries this is local people, and in British cities it is often immigrants, legal or illegal.”(4,5)

These low standards are reflected in a number of the criticisms on the table. The Whitbread chain was fined for injuries to a kitchen worker, allegedly after health & safety officers had warned of dangerous equipment.(6) Intercontinental Hotels was the subject of a number of trade union boycotts in the USA over working conditions, while Marriott International was also the subject of various union boycotts and an allegation of unfair sacking at its hotel in Kuala Lumpur.(7,8)

Reporting wrongs

The poor ethical records of many hotel chains come as no surprise to anyone looking at the sector’s record on environmental and social reporting. According to Guyonne James, “very few hotel companies report in any meaningful way on the environment or labour conditions. Most don’t understand the issues or the point at all, and even if they do report there is often no correlation between words and deeds – it has no effect on their business practices.”(4)

The reporting records of hotel companies are significantly worse than comparable markets, with even global companies such as Best Western having no reporting at all. Those which did report often produced superficial documents, full of vague promises and suggestions that hotel customers should help the environment through minor measures such as re-using towels. Intercontinental Hotels and WA Shearing owners 3i Group appeared on a list of 14 FTSE 100 companies whose CSR reporting contained “too little substantive information and performance data to be considered legitimate CSR reports,” according to corporate communications consultancy Salterbaxter.(9)

Although some of the hotel chains which only have sites in Britain come out better on the table, because they have not been the subjects of campaign group attention and do not pick up marks for operations in oppressive regimes, they are often the worst on environmental and social reporting, showing no awareness at all that this is an activity they should be engaging in. Accor’s reporting was an improvement on some of its competitors, but in the absence of any independent monitoring no guarantees exist of standards being adhered to.

Links

Tourism Concern
www.tourismconcern.org.uk, 020 7133 3330
Also produces the Ethical Travel Guide, including a directory and advice on how to holiday sensitively in the UK and abroad.

References

1 Tourism Concern press release 25/7/2006 “Global Hotel chain’s claims of responsible development are a ‘greenwash,’ says pressure group”
2 “Garifuna communities continue to struggle for territory,” www.globalexchange.org 17/10/2006
3 “Garifuna Community Leader in Honduras Threatened with Death” www.humanrightsfirst.org 6/7/2006
4 conversation with Guyonne James, Tourism Concern, 14/11/2006
5 The Guardian, 29/4/2006
6 Hazards, January 2002
7 Label Letter, September 2005
8 CSR Asia Weekly 1/3/2006
9 Independent 20/2/2006