ABSTRACT
The issue of human rights in the hospitality industry has rarely been explicitly dealt with. This chapter aims to fill this gap by examining the human rights obligations and responses of international hotel chains. The chapter introduces negative and positive responsibilities and describes distinctive challenges in different institutional environments, i.e. in democratic and in non-democratic countries. It investigates the actions of three large hotel chains: InterContinental Hotels, Hyatt and Shangri-La. These companies have explicitly recognized their human rights obligations and have implemented measures such as human rights policies, reporting on human rights issues, ethics training and signing up to the UN (United Nations) Global Compact. While the negative duty to “do no harm” has been recognized, there is a need for further appropriate responses for acting in an environment of unjust law.
