Real Deal

More than an eco-friendly

towel policy

Despite a growing trend in ‘ethical tourism’, the nearest

most international hotel chains appear to get to a

sustainability strategy is an eco-friendly towel policy.

While the big players such as Best Western International,

InterContinental and Hilton Hotels laud over their own

ethical credentials in glossy corporate brochures, our

investigations find many of these claims appear to be

paper-thin.

At over US$730 million, tourism is the world’s biggest

industry. Yet despite their commanding role in this sector and

their significant financial clout, international hotel chains

possess some of the weakest environmental and social

responsibility reporting records of any consumer industry.

Along with the serious lack of corporate social responsibility

(CSR) reporting, Consumers International (CI) and the Ethical

Consumer Research Association (ECRA) research has also

revealed how some international hotel chains are doing

significant damage to fragile natural environments and

perpetuating poor treatment of local residents and hotel

employees.

It appears that the 900 million people who travel abroad

every year have very little to choose from among the major

hotel chains when it comes to social and environmental

policies. The hotel industry needs to realise that consumers

demand more than an eco-friendly towel policy or low

energy light bulb initiative. Real accountability is desperately

overdue.

This Real Deal feature examines the unethical behaviour

of the worst offending international hotel chains, and

looks at what the industry, as well as consumers, can do to

change this.

How do the top hotel chains score when it comes to people and the planet?

From a maximum score of 14.

Click here to go to The Real Deal web page.

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Issues

Planet

Hilton in the Bahamas

Hotel chains have many environmental responsibilities to live

up to from managing waste, conserving water and energy to

sustainable building construction and reducing noise

pollution. Environmentally sensitive decision-making begins

with their choice of hotel sites. However, as this example

illustrates the lofty sustainability statements of major hotel

chains sometimes conflict with their operations on the

ground.

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. According to

local and international campaigners, Hilton was accused of

damaging the island’s mangrove swamps and coastline and

threatening endangered species. The construction company

at Bimini is also reported to have 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

The chain’s President and CEO Christopher Nassetta proudly

proclaims Hilton’s commitments to sustainability on their US

corporate website. In addition the Group’s sustainability

policies commit Hilton to “Influencing land use in harmony

with nature and construction by promoting the use of

established environmental best practices.”2 However, In

March 2008, a short documentary by Fabien Cousteau,

grandson of the famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau,

highlighted the continued negative impact of Hilton’s

development on Bimini’s economy, people and environment.

View the film here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su5WKbaqbDA&am

p;feature=related

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 the

environmental group Global Exchange to be sited within the

buffer zone of a National Park and to threaten fragile

wetlands.3 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.4

Luxury in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

Hotel development was also an issue for post-tsunami Sri-

Lanka. Following

...