Qatar’s hospitality sector has become overall more transparent since last year, according to a recent report by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, which also found most major brands in the Gulf state’s hotel industry have “limited understanding” of recruitment fee issues and how to tackle them...

The Employer Pays Principle, human rights due diligence procedures, fee payments, and the size and breadth of their business in Qatar and during the World Cup were among the six questions that the Business and Human Rights Resource Center posed to 30 hotel brands...

Despite the widespread use of the practise, only four of the companies disclosed discovering recruitment fee payments from their interviews with employees...

“These findings together suggest the interviewing process for most hotel brands needs strengthening to ensure workers who cite fear and intimidation are able to give voice to their experiences of the recruitment process, including being required to pay illegal fees,” the report reads.