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Diversity, equality and inclusion: five lessons for the hospitality industry from the HSMAI Europe Curate 2020

Ed Lines is a Travel Industry Manager at Google and proud to be an ally of the BAME community and other underrepresented groups. He sits on the HSMAI Europe Marketing and Branding Advisory Board

In the Google Travel Team, in which I work, and in the wider company, we are committed to promoting diversity and we have a strong desire to play a positive role in creating a more diverse, equal and inclusive society. The hospitality and travel industry has an amazing ability to bring people together from different backgrounds and break down cultural barriers. In his Innocents Abroad, 1869, Mark Twain put it beautifully: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”.

So, the HSMAI Europe Curate felt like a great platform to build on the awareness and momentum of the last year. However, despite this momentum, with female board representation still only at 29% across Hospitality, Travel and Leisure, and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) board representation at 6% (PwC, 2020), we still have a lot of work to do.

With a view to creating some ideas for the industry, in partnership with HSMAI and Women in Travel, we asked leaders of hospitality the question: “How can we create a more diverse and transparent hospitality industry?”

The day was moderated by Alessandra Alonso, Founder of Women in Travel CIC and featured panelists and facilitators from across the hospitality and technology industry, including:

  • Anant Vithlani, VP Sales, Nordic Choice Hotels
  • Cynthia Paynter, VP Pricing and Revenue Management, Accor
  • Dee Gibson, Owner, Kalukanda House
  • Finnbar Cornwall, Travel Industry Head, Google
  • Jamie-Lee Abtar, Executive Director BAME Women in Travel
  • Nishma Robb, Director of Brand & Reputation Marketing, Google
  • Susan Meinl, VP HR, Talent & Culture, Design Hotels AG

Based on the discussions with the panelists and the breakout sessions with the HSMAI delegates, here are five lessons for the hospitality industry on creating greater diversity, equality and inclusion:

  1. The financial case for greater equality, diversity and inclusion is well documented, but there are many other values which often get overlooked
  2. Without data, targets and measurement, it won’t happen
  3. What constitutes discrimination is easily misunderstood
  4. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is not just about your employees
  5. Allyship matters

1. The financial case for greater equality, diversity and inclusion is well documented, but there are many other values which often get overlooked

Alessandra Alonso, Founder of Women in Travel, kicked off the discussion with research from McKinsey which, moving aside ethical necessity, shows the clear business case for diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI).

  • Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians
  • Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians

But, the Curate brought forward many other values, beyond financial, that are often overlooked. Speaking on the panel, Cynthia Paynter, Vice President at Accor, pointed out the importance of diversity for a team’s culture. “Culture is everything,” she said, “ when you think about all that’s embedded within it. It’s nationality, it’s ethnicity, it’s socio-economic class, it’s family. It’s for everyone.”

The breakout groups agreed; a positive and diverse culture creates a virtuous cycle. It allows people to feel like they belong, it breeds creativity and innovation, it reflects well on the brand, it drives financial success and it fuels talent acquisition.

Panelist and facilitator, Anant Vithlani, spoke about how, as VP of Sales at Nordic Choice Hotels, “I want my team to come to work as who they are.” One of the most popular rewards for sales teams at Nordic Choice, is that the Sales Person of the Month is given money to donate to a sustainable cause and this has been great for fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion.

2. Without data, targets and measurement, it won’t happen

Though the hospitality, leisure and travel industry is faring better than other industries when it comes to DEI, according to a 2020 PwC report, the data still doesn’t make for pretty reading:

  • The gender pay gap is 14.7%
  • Female board representation is 28.9%
  • BAME board representation is 6.4% vs a working age BAME population of 12.5%,
  • The number of all-male leadership triumvirates (CEO, CFO and Chair) in Travel is 74%

Nishma Robb, Director of Brand & Reputation Marketing, at Google, and former MD of Teletext Holidays, described the value in quality data, pointing out that, “you can not change something, unless you can see it”. This sentiment was echoed by her fellow panelists and in the breakout groups who agreed that organisations need to set clear DEI strategies, with the same importance on hitting goals as if it was quarterly finance targets.

One finding from the pre-Curate survey, however, was that though the majority of HSMAI member companies have DEI strategies, there are still 29% that don’t. This also correlates with the same PwC report, which shows that only 24% of Travel companies’ D&I strategies include ethnic diversity and nearly half of companies do not currently track the relevant ethnic data.

3. What constitutes discrimination is easily misunderstood

The HSMAI members’ pre-Curate survey showed that whilst many respondents had witnessed discrimination in terms of gender, origin and ethnicity, 63% said that they had never witnessed discrimination at all. Yet with the gender pay gap at 14.7% and considering the other data points above, we dedicated one of the break out groups to help answer the question, “what does discrimination look like?”

Whilst discrimination can certainly be clear and obvious, the group felt that one of the reasons respondents might have said that they have not witnessed discrimination, is down to differences in interpretation by both sides involved. Often the discriminatory act is not something overt and obvious to one side. It can be a misjudged joke; a comment on someone’s appearance, non-inclusive language, excluding someone from a social gathering, negative body language; all essentially microaggressions that contribute to the bigger problem.

Dee Gibson, interior designer and owner of Kalukanda House in Sri Lanka, spoke of her experience as a British Sri Lankan, finding that early in her career, people were visibly surprised when they met her in person after hearing her English accent over the phone.

Ultimately all these microaggressions, sometimes combined with unconscious biases, are all connected to the full employee journey and they can starve underrepresented groups of the opportunity to get hired, get promoted, advance in their careers and get paid fairly.

4. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is not just about your employees

DEI is not simply about doing what’s right by your employees; it’s about your customers too.

Jamie-Lee Abtar of BAME Women in Travel made the point that when it comes to the commercial side, it is a fact that our customers are diverse and want to see their diversity represented. For example, “In the US, African Americans spend $64 billion on travel every year”, she said. “As hoteliers and marketers, we can no longer ignore these important segments of society”. Jamie-Lee leads a community of BAME creators and travel writers, who she says are frustrated that they do not see themselves represented in travel marketing and writing. “The industry ignores us”, she explained on the panel.

Studies show that 70% of multicultural travellers book accommodations and travel experiences with companies where they see themselves reflected and yet, often with images of beautiful white couples on sandy beaches, the world of creatives in travel advertising can be shockingly undiverse.

Harald Bjugstad-Holm, Director of Sustainability at Nordic Choice Hotels, described the importance of designing with a diversity-first mindset. Diversity shouldn’t just be a core consideration for hiring and people teams, it should permeate everything at the company including the branding and marketing departments, and celebrating the diverse nature of hospitality within advertising too.

5. Allyship matters

Finally, many of the panelists spoke of the importance of allyship and that society can only become equal if allies of the BAME community and underrepresented groups truly lend themselves to the cause.

Cynthia Paynter spoke of the Accor diversity program RiiSE, which expanded six years after the creation of the Women at Accor Hotels group in 2018 to include both men and women who are committed to the values of sharing knowledge, of solidarity and of combating stereotypes. Its action is based in particular on the sharing of knowledge through a mentoring program, with 900 pairs in some 20 countries, on the promotion of especially female talent to positions of responsibility, and on combatting all forms of discrimination.

Jamie-Lee Abtar added that, “allyship can be a driving force for diversity and inclusion in the workplace”.

Finally, I closed the Curate, announcing that Google is excited to be piloting its #IamRemarkable workshops in partnership with HSMAI Europe and Women in Travel. The workshops aim to empower women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond. We’re offering the free virtual workshop to HSMAI members on 10th February 2021, registration details coming soon.

It was clear, from the HSMAI Europe Curate, that when it comes to DEI, everyone has a voice, everyone can make a difference in the name of what’s right for society and together we can build a diverse, inclusive and equal future. My thanks go to all the panelists and facilitators who dedicated their time to such an important discussion.

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HSMAI Europe People & Culture Advisory Board debates the challenges of uncertainty



Author: Gil Mulders, Chair of the HSMAI Region Europe People & Culture Advisory Board and Founder of the Talent Network

Little did we know when we created the HSMAI Europe People & Culture advisory board just two years ago that our world would experience so much change. Our conversations have always been focused on Attraction – Selection – Development and Retention of the best talents in the business. 

The “WHAT” hasn’t change, we still need to attract the best, select for passion and attitude , develop and retain. However the “HOW” and the “WHY” have evolved dramatically with the health and economic crisis that follows.  

Gil Mulders

The diversity of background within our board, ranging from Operation, HR, Learning and Academia in large and smaller organizations allowed us to re-think and challenge the traditional pre-COVID approaches and also to temper the post-COVID knee-jerk reactions we have seen in the business. 

We covered each of the above aspects of People & Culture in hospitality and asked ourselves the following questions: 

  • How do you attract people to an industry that has been hit the hardest by the economic downturn ? Are hotel schools making the appropriate adaptations to help their students secure the best jobs in what remains the industry that employees the largest number of people in the world? How do you keep your best talents from jumping ship?  
  • Which are the skills and competencies that you need to run a successful business during a storm ? Which of those need to be developed or acquired? 
  • How can we keep employee engagement up when we need to downsize? What is the role of mentoring? 

More questions then there are answers, however we have kept supporting HSMAI members and the industry at large with tools to guide attraction, selection and on-the job leadership development. We supported the creation of the Excelling at Customer Centricity Virtual Class, supported the  Mike Leven Mentoring Programme and together with the HSMAI Europe team and HSMAI Foundation, are bringing together CHRO from the industry in a virtual round table to expand the conversation  

If you’d like to know more about the HSMAI Europe People & Culture Advisory Board, please get in touch with HSMAI Region Europe at postbox@hsmai.eu

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Post-Corona Era: Challenging Times Ahead

By Emile Schelfhout, HSMAI, Tuesday 26th May 2020

About the Author – Emile Schelfhout

He is a 22 year-old ambitious hotel & hospitality professional. Having worked in five hotels and a cluster management company, he got exposed to all departments and gained a profound understanding of a hotel’s daily and longer-term challenges. Additionally, he established valuable insights into ways of thinking applied by hotel managers, which is of the highest importance when engaging in cooperation with hotels. This understanding, combined with an MBA education, makes him someone who comprehends and can implement operational excellence, strategic performance, and people leadership. In the near future, he hopes to continue to grow the HSMAI network by looking for those who want to contribute to this wonderful industry. Because when you bring people together across companies and brands, you will make a difference for the future hotel & hospitality industry.

Emile will work as a volunteer for HSMAI Region Europe for a few hours per week, during this time he will also complete his MBA. 

Here is his first blog post for HSMAI Region Europe:

Over the last decades, the hotel and travel industry has proven to be a robust and flexible industry. They survived terroristic attacks, a financial crisis and tremendous changes in customer behaviour due to digitisation of the society. However, the last few months have challenged hotel and restaurant owners as never before.

Simultaneously, admirable initiatives such as volunteering actions, events like Hospitality Tomorrow and other webinars emerged. All stakeholders of this industry are impacted: travellers are not able to continue business or go on holidays, hotel staff had to find a different way of supporting their precious hotel guests, and hotel managers were confronted with strategic challenges they never encountered before. Meanwhile, scientists keep on looking for an antidote so we can get back into a new normal. This article aims at providing hospitality professionals with an overview of what actions they should have completed during these challenging times and what to look out for in the near future.

What you should have done

COVID-19 has once again confirmed the value of the renowned Maslow pyramid. Despite the lack of previous experience of dealing with a global pandemic of this size, employees, guests and management first required to be acknowledged of their primary needs: safety, security and health. This prerequisite did not only include a need for a guarantee of safe and healthy work conditions but as well as protection on a psychological and monetary level. Only appropriate proactive measures can provide such comfort through the implementation of cleaning protocols, distance measures, and hygiene regulations combined with a candid and proactive communication to all previously mentioned stakeholders. This communication should breathe an interest in the well-being of those stakeholders to be perceived as authentic.

What starts as a social service can potentially turn into a financial benefit. Engagement with your community, also when you are under financial stress, has never been more critical. Many initiatives emerged: hotels offering their rooms to health care workers or homeless people, restaurants providing meal packages for hospitals… you name it! If you haven’t done so before, now is the time to start these practices to survive and build a community of trust, safety and belonging.

Use the experience you’ve had before the corona era and dare to move on! Dare to break with the paradigms, and to develop your strategy based on data and market knowledge. You definitely should consider showing flexibility in your rate policy.

What you should keep doing

If you haven’t started doing any of the topics mentioned above, now is the time to follow-up. If you have, maintain this open, candid communication internally and externally. Remain true to your commitment. It’s no secret customer expectations and customer demands have changed drastically compared to 2019, and will continue to do so in the next couple of months. These changes include a demand for providing guarantees for a risk-free stay, an increase in the pace of the digital evolution, and a new standard for luxury on the short-term. Stay ahead of these evolutions and develop new forms of customer empathy to anticipate new customer behaviour and demands. A change in your behaviour as an enterprise will lead to providing an answer to these new customer needs.

For international travel, one of the most influential factors are regulations concerning the restrictions upheld by the country of origin and the destination. Therefore, keep track of international rules, as they will highly influence your short- and mid-term segmentation. The COVID-19 global pandemic revealed the hotel industry’s dependence on very few substantial revenue streams and a shortage of investment in new profit models. Predications by STR expose that a RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room) similar to 2019, will only be achieved within seven years from now. Hence, on a longer-term, hospitality leaders will highly benefit from looking beyond traditional revenue creation (mainly from room revenue) and from moving beyond the paradigm of limiting hotel services to the four walls that define its infrastructure.

Be Positive, Be Hospitality

There are some green shoots in China and the US. Organisations such as STR and Skift strongly believe in an increase in demand as from the months June and July. Unfortunately, Europe is lagging behind. However, despite the many steps to be taken, the hotel and accommodation industry will always be about providing a hospitable welcome to its guests. Until we defined this new normal together as an industry, we have to keep looking to establish these new standards. Within this process, the value of organisations such as HSMAI become clear. They bring industry professionals together and propose answers to critical issues that dominate the industry. The hotel industry will continue its battle against this pandemic and challenging times ahead. That’s what we not only owe to ourselves, our employees and our guests but as well to the many communities we maintain.

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Revenue Management: Here’s your call to action (again)

By Dr. Kelly McGuire, PhD, Principal, McRevenue

I’ve been obsessively listening to Lady Gaga since I had the privilege of catching her pop and jazz shows in Las Vegas.   I’m particularly obsessed with her song “The Edge of Glory”.  It’s always been an inspirational song for me.  I suggest that revenue management also take this as their anthem.  Because, we are on the Edge of Glory. The industry is hanging by a moment with us…  What concerns me is: What’s on the non-Glory side of the Edge?  I’m pretty sure it’s mediocrity.  And we are dangerously close to sliding into it.  And at the bottom of the slope? Obsolescence…

Revenue management stands at a precipice (again).  After 10ish years of growth and (relative, for some of us) prosperity, things might not be as easy or profitable moving forward.  As much as revenue management changed how the industry thinks about hotel room pricing, lately we are tending towards complacency.  We won battles a few years ago.  We are near enough to the table to feel good.  We still have our jobs (most of us).  It’s easy to make money when times are good.  Revenue management should also shine when times are not as great.  Unfortunately, we are just not ready. 

Why would I say that?  I’ve spent some time recently speaking with industry leaders from inside and outside revenue management.  Most of them are getting the feeling these days that revenue management isn’t quite living up to its potential or promise.  There was a lot of momentum five or ten years ago, as we pulled out of the Great Recession, but that momentum has slowed or stalled in many cases.  As Aymeric Erulin put it in his recent article, “Revenue Management: Have you been doing it wrong?”, instead of pushing for revenue optimization, revenue management tends to fall back on the same “pre-made sentences such as: ‘decreasing the price brings volume’ and ‘the performance achieved last year is the reference’”.   Meanwhile, we talk a big game about industry innovations like total hotel revenue management or integrated marketing and revenue management.  The innovations that never quite arrive.  If pushed, maybe rising distribution costs get blamed.  And we’re not doing much about that either. 

Now all the talk is about how AI and machine learning are the future of hospitality.  Let’s point out that most of “all the talk” is the technology vendors and third-party communities (trying to sell you something).  This is the same community that brought us OTAs, benchmarking, social, eCommerce, attribution modeling and everything else we couldn’t build a strategy around fast enough to take and keep control over.  I’m not saying they aren’t great partners, or that they haven’t made a huge difference in industry. They are and they have.  I’m saying that the core strategy should be driven by the hotels, not their partners.  The partners would probably agree with me.  Technology should support and extend existing hotel strategy, yet we tend to wait around for a vendor to tell us what’s next and then build around whatever the vendor offers.  We need to stop just waiting for the next big thing to happen to us, or we will risk being replaced by the very algorithms that are supposed to “save” us.    

Steven Dow and I hosted the Great Debate: (Hu)Man versus Machine at the HSMAI EU ROC conference in Amsterdam two years ago, and Calvin Anderson and I repeated the event at the HSMAI Americas ROC in Houston.  It was clear already at that time that AI and ML has huge potential. But it also takes great data, extensive computing power, and a lot of iterations to execute.   Not to mention a deep bench of data science expertise, which most hospitality companies don’t have, and probably shouldn’t invest in.  We’ve had that discussion.  It’s not enough to continue to debate whether “machines” will take over in revenue management.  “Take over” to me is a strong phrase.  AI and ML should only support a fraction of the job of the revenue manager.  If revenue management keeps acting as tactically as we are today, leadership will begin to wonder why they still need people.  Remember, as a revenue leader you are not responsible for building the algorithms.  You are in charge of the strategy, and how the algorithms will support it. 

Here’s why I’m concerned.  Revenue management has not yet successfully separated the job of the revenue manager from the job of the revenue management system.  We all know that automation should free up the revenue manager to focus on strategy, but we have not proven that because revenue managers don’t always act like that.  Our myopic focus on day to day pricing, overriding rates, creating excel files and allowing GMs, Asset Managers and Owners bully us on tactical pricing strategies has kept us in jobs (crappy ones), but kept us from being strategic partners.  It’s also kept us from executing on initiative like total hotel revenue management, or better integration with sales and marketing.

Unfortunately for the people in this equation, the marketing messaging around machine learning reinforces the promise that the machine can price faster and better.  It’s true.  In fact, the machine always could even before computing power enabled the use of more complicated (and potentially unnecessary) AI and ML algorithms. 

Of course, we need to understand what’s coming – and fully embrace the potential of machine learning in revenue management. But we need to do that in the context of our strategy and our business opportunities.  With impending downturn, global political uncertainty and trade wars looming, there is a lot for revenue management to do.  The machine learning silver bullet (whatever that is), is not “just around the corner” waiting to save the day. It will never be as easy as that.  We can’t wait around assuming it will come to us eventually.  It’s time to take control.  It’s time to up our game and it’s time to be the strategic partners industry expects us to be. 

Here’s what you need to do:

  • Elevate: Try to get yourself and your team out of the weeds for at least a couple of hours a week.  Maybe set up meetings with counterparts to talk market strategy (not promotions schedules or past performance).  As you prepare for revenue strategy meetings, include a strategic component, and try to anticipate (and minimize) the discussions that will encourage the GM or asset manager to pull you into the weeds.
  • Stay Educated:  Attend conferences, host book clubs and point of view discussions, read articles – try to find as much industry generated content that you can about issues that will impact your job, like AI/ML, economic conditions, pricing techniques, technology development and leadership skills.   This way you can figure out how innovations fit into your strategy.
  • Focus on soft skills:  Make sure you and your team are taking time to develop leadership skills, telling a story with data, communicating with influence and collaborating with other departments.  This is how you become a strategic partner.
  • Plan: As you are elevating, don’t forget to plan for the future.  Not just forecasts or budgets, but team development, strategies and technology.  Even if you don’t have the budget or the internal capability, it can’t hurt from time to time to make a wish list, or just brainstorm.   Good ideas may come from this, and you’ll also be prepared when the opportunity arises.
  • Keep lines of communication open: Develop close relationships with your counterparts in marketing, sales, distribution and operations.  Plan regular knowledge sharing sessions about upcoming initiatives or even day in the life discussions.  You’ll probably be surprised how many people make incorrect assumptions about opportunities, incentives and constraints in their counterparts’ organizations

Revenue management needs to stop the myopic and singular focus on day to day pricing and start thinking bigger and more strategically!  This is the only way to ensure your organization can survive and thrive in what’s coming next.  And it’s definitely the only way to make sure revenue management continues to have a seat at the table! 

I’ll be in London for HSMAI EU’s ROC event in January, where I will be speaking about new pricing techniques for hospitality, some of which leverage AI&ML, but all of which will require careful planning and strategic alignment to execute properly. Join me and HSMAI EU to sharpen your skills and your strategy! 

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New HSMAI Region Europe blog

This is the first of a series of blog posts, in which thought leaders in the hospitality industry will share their thoughts, ideas or a personal story that is strongly linked to the industry. Sometimes personal experiences can give you the best (new) insights into industry-related topics, and prove to be excellent examples of how you would like things to happen within your work environment as well. Together with these blog posts we will also start developing interviews with industry experts, in the shape of blog posts, vlogs and podcasts.  

We start off with a personal experience of HSMAI Region Europe’s President & CEO Ingunn Hofseth

British Airways’ ground crew’s excellent Customer Service

HSMAI Region Europe’s President & CEO Ingunn Hofseth

You can probably all imagine how annoying it can be when you reach the airport gate and find out that your flight is overbooked. This is exactly what happened to me, en route to Budapest from London Heathrow Airport. But, it had a very happy ending thanks to British Airways’ excellent customer service.

I always try to travel economy class but as a holder of a Star Alliance’s Diamond card they always take very good care of me. I hadn’t travelled with BA for a while, but this time I had booked an economy class ticket to Budapest from Heathrow London, with no BA loyalty or mileage card. I got up at five o’clock in the morning, to reach my nine o’clock flight. Upon arrival at the gate I learned that my flight was overbooked and I was now rebooked on a flight set to leave London Heathrow at 2:30 PM. It was unfortunate, but I did not make a big deal of it and remained calm.

What happened next however impressed me deeply. I was taken to a back office where I received, in an exemplary way, a detailed explanation for the delay. “We are truly sorry but will try to compensate you the best way we know how to ” said the BA representative. They offered me:

– An upgrade including full access to the BA lounge with all facilities at my disposal.

– A substantial refund in the shape of a card for use in the airport’s shops, which could be converted into a prepaid VISA card that lasts for a few months.

Photo: Donald Porter, Former V.P. British Airways

What impressed me the most, though, was the genuine personal service. With service like that you’re almost happy you lost the flight and it only goes to show that British Airways really values the importance of good customer service. Whereas some of us become a little defensive in the face of criticism, at BA they see it as a competitive edge and a means of improvement and it says a lot about the company culture.

We could all learn a lesson from that, I think, in realising how important customer service is. With all of this in mind you may be happy to learn that HSMAI Region Europe have developed a new programme; the ECC Programme. 

Our programme, Excelling at Customer Centricity, is an Executive Coach Certification with the aim for participants to become enablers of a culture of customer centric excellence.

Photo: From the ECC Programme in London

The first certification workshop took place in London in September this year (2019). The programme got great feedback and St James Court was a perfect kick-off venue for the programme. See here

The next certification workshop will take place on December 4th – 6th, at the wonderful hotel The Thief Hotel in Oslo

To British Airway’s Jacqueline Jolly and Sharon Fernandez – and all of your colleagues at Heathrow:  Thank you so much for an inspiring experience!

Photo: British Airways Customer Service Representative Jacqueline Jolly HSMAI Europe President and CEO Ingunn Hofseth and Sharon Fernandez British

I wish you all a lovely day!

Warm Regards

Ingunn Hofseth
President & CEO
HSMAI Region Europe