The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (formerly known as International Tourism Partnership) is a non-profit organisation that drives collaborative action to enable the hospitality industry to have a lasting positive impact on our planet and its people.
In 2018, the Alliance launched its Principles of Forced Labour, which outline a core set of principles to help the hospitality industry to prioritise action to address the primary drivers of forced labour.
The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance has formed strategic partnerships with a variety of international agencies including International Organization for Migration (IOM) funded by the US Department of State through the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration, the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery with funding provided by the United States government, and Humanity United. Work is focused on creating and piloting a number of initiatives on advancing ethical recruitment practices for hotels at all levels. This includes:
Awareness and governance
- Providing guidance to the industry to strengthen existing or create new policies that align with ethical recruitment principles.
- Promoting ethical recruitment in day-to-day operations including how to incorporate ethical recruitment into operational streams.
- Developing commitments and action plans to align company policies and practices with ethical recruitment principles.
- Offering a free training on Recognising signs of modern slavery in labour supply chains created with support from Hilton.
Risk assessment
- Developing guidance (to be published soon) that details migrant worker journeys in key-recruitment corridors from India, Sri Lanka and Tunisia to Qatar and how to embed ethical recruitment principles into the process.
- Developing a labour supply chain mapping tool that will include a risk-assessment process for all recruitment actors used by hotels including in country of origin.
- Reviewing migrant worker risks – including best practice on what makes a good or bad contract for migrant workers.
Due diligence
- Educating hotel partners on conducting due diligence and monitoring for business partners, subcontractors, and third-party labour providers.
- Providing inputs to Promoting Fair Recruitment and Employment – A Guidance Tool for Hotels in Qatar, developed by Qatar’s Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs together with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Project Office in Qatar, the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) and the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Grievance and remediation
- Providing guidance on incorporating migrant worker voice.
- Providing guidance on establishing/strengthening grievance mechanisms and remedy for any issues uncovered.
Taking practical action
The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance focusses on producing hospitality-specific tools, trainings and resources that provide practical steps that hotels can take to strengthen and implement internal policies and procedures, carry out due diligence of service providers and labour recruiters, and improve workplace relations.
Maximising collaboration
Programmes are co-created through multi-stakeholder partnerships including international agencies, governments, and civil society, as well as leveraging insights and support from its committed member hotel companies and the wider industry. The resources developed as part of these initiatives are made available for the broader industry with the aim of driving ethical recruitment practices across the sector.
Supporting reform across the sector
Much still remains to be done in addressing the complex challenges of ethical recruitment. The Alliance believes that through multi-stakeholder partnerships to create practical solutions as well as showcasing existing best practices, the pace of change can be accelerated.
The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance invites any hotel regardless of size or scale to take advantage of these free tools and resources to improve its recruitment practices.