Hilton, Hyatt and IHG Hotels & Resorts are teaming up to provide the hospitality industry with a free human trafficking prevention training this year, created by Protect All Children from Trafficking (PACT) and Unboxed Training & Technology.
The 30-minute survivor-informed training offers courses in English and Spanish on PACT’s website for free industry use. It’s the first time the three hotel giants have partnered in this way.
Participants will be able to learn at their pace, receive technical support and reminders throughout their educational journey and receive a certificate of completion when finished.
The three major hotel companies are also part of the American Hotels & Lodging Association’s No Room for Trafficking Advisory Council, a cross-industry collaboration that’s committed to ending human trafficking and providing support for survivors.
“As an industry, we’ll continue to play a leading role in human trafficking prevention. Through the AHLA Foundation’s NRFT initiative, our mission is to convene the industry to elevate awareness of the crisis of human trafficking, educate the industry, and support survivors on their path forward,” said Kevin Carey, President and CEO of AHLA Foundation.
“We are proud to support this collaboration,” Carey said. “This is the kind of industry-wide cooperation on shared priorities that we hope will inspire future collective efforts on critical societal concerns.”
The PACT training will be offered alongside Marriott’s own training program, which has been completed over 2.6 million times by hospitality industry employees since 2020.
January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The Polaris Project, a nonprofit that’s been working to end human trafficking for about 20 years, reported over 10,000 human trafficking incidents within the United States in 2021, with over 16,000 victims.
And unfortunately, human traffickers often use hotels to traffic victims. If you’re curious to learn more about the travel industry’s connection with human trafficking, and what the industry is doing to prevent and stop trafficking, read our feature on the topic.
“This collaboration shows that together, we can achieve more than any of us could alone,” said Katherine Lugar, EVP, corporate affairs, Hilton and president, Hilton Global Foundation, “Today, we’re putting competition aside and partnering across the industry to ensure every hospitality professional has access to the most up to date information and tools they need to recognize, respond and report instances of trafficking.”
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