Qatar’s luxury hotels fall well short of protecting rights of migrant workers
....... But sixteen months to the World Cup 2022, the biggest, most profitable hotel brands in the world are failing to recognise their responsibility to prevent, mitigate and remedy labour rights abuses against migrant workers in their hotels. That was the conclusion following our survey of 19 multinational, household-name brands to find out how they are ensuring migrant workers in their Qatar hotels can enjoy their labour rights in full. Only 11 brands responded to the survey, with the eight non-responders including US hospitality giants Best Western and Four Seasons, and UK-headquartered Millennium and Copthorne.
We asked hotels about their recruitment practices, due diligence, as well as workers’ job mobility, freedom of movement, living conditions and more – and then ranked them based on their answers. The results should ring alarm bells for anyone headed to Doha in November 2022. While IHG Hotels & Resorts was the only brand to score a “three star” rating (out of five), overall, no brand scored over 50% in the survey. Most achieved only two stars, while luxury hotel groups Hyatt and Louvre scored only one star each. While efforts by one or two brands are welcome, alarmingly many of the deficits in protections were areas previously highlighted in our 2019 survey.