Hospitality Industry and its Forms of Exploitation: An Ethical Perspective

This report discusses the ethical issues faced by the hospitality industry, the role of business ethics, affected stakeholders, examples of good and bad ethical practices, and recommendations. It also applies two theories of ethics, Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics, to the hospitality sector of UK. The report highlights the need for hotels to prioritize ethics to better customer service and capture a larger market share.

The hospitality
Industry and how
it deals with its
forms of
exploitation

Table of Contents
PART 1 A .......................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Ethical issues and its importance............................................................................................1
Ethical issues faced by the company......................................................................................1
Role of business in society.....................................................................................................2
Affected stakeholders.............................................................................................................3
Examples of good and bad ethical practice............................................................................4
Recommendations..................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
PART B............................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................6
Discuss and apply two theories of ethics together with its advantages and disadvantages....6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
PART 2..........................................................................................................................................10
Reflective essay on Ethical Leadership management..........................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

PART 1 A
INTRODUCTION
Although the travel and tourism industry has been unprecedented growth in the recent
years, the risk of exploitation issues and ethical dilemmas is also rising steadily as hotel chains
are much less concerned with booking their rooms rather than preventing any illegal practice
from taking place in those same rooms. The role of business ethics is very complex when it
comes to the hospitality sector and in order to make the businesses more sustainable and to
prevent shareholder exploitation, the hotel establishments globally must look to streamline their
ethical stances regarding the various operations that their hotel chains partake in (Goryushkina,
and et.al., 2019).
This report will highlight the role of business ethics in the hospitality sector and study all
the ethical issues the industry is currently facing such as sex trafficking, employee exploitation
and supply chain transparency within the context of the case study report of 'Beyond Compliance
in the hotel sector: A review of UK modern slavery act statements'.
Ethical issues and its importance
It has been established that ethics is defined as the moral values of the business
organisation or an individual to conduct their day to day activities. It is very important for the
business organisation to be ethically upright in order to be effective within the society. Business
ethics defines the culture which need to be followed by the management and employees for the
business enterprise. It is very essential for the organisation to work in a right path in order to
achieve the goals and objectives of the business organisation. The business ethics is concerned as
the matter of concern for the organisations to prevent the harmful effects within the external
environment (McCoy, 2020). According to the case study, various hotel chains have failed to
address the ethical problems that are currently prevailing in this sector such as sex trafficking
and employee exploitation.
Ethical issues faced by the company
Since the hotel company that I work as an employee in is very popular and owns multiple
chains all around UK and has also been involved in extensive franchising, the current ethical
issues being faced are numerous which are stated herein.
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 The extensive supply chain network is very non-transparent and it involves multiple
institutions and supplier networks whose employee practices and ethical focus is very
vague
 The hotel is currently focusing on filling as many rooms as possible through attractive
marketing and lucrative discounts but is not concerned with what happens inside the
rooms
 The hotel is suffering from the same problem as rest of the hospitality industry which is
no existence of robust policies which would prevent workplace exploitation
 The staff employed in departments like housekeeping and cleaning have constantly
complained about harassment by both clients and other personnel
 The amount of work done by the employees does not reflect their current level of pay
Role of business in society
It is overbid that the main aim and the role of the business in society is to generate
revenue and serve best to the society. It is identified that the profits which are earned by the
business organisation by satisfying the customers’ needs and demands. It is very significant for
the business enterprise to prepare the proper code of conduct so that the organisation can focus
on taking initiative in making a positive impact and which can lead to the benefits of the business
organisation. The CSR activities and ethical campaigns are conducted to ensure the welfare of
the society in order to attract them towards achieving the objectives and goals of the business
enterprise (Ruiz-Palomino, and et.al., 2019). This will help the businesses to achieve its
objectives without facing the major challenges and obstacles.
As per the case study and after identifying the current issues that are being faced by my
hotel branch, it is evident that more focus on ethical sustainability is the way to go forward.
Hotels which are currently displaying unethical standards face the fear of getting negative public
backlash along with getting their brand perception and strength reduced significantly. The case
study report makes it clear that after detailed research, many hotels are not possessing any
framework to prevent exploitations such as harassments and workplace discrimination. If hotels
of UK do not pay close attention to the current malpractices then it would not only reduce the
sector's profits but make the situation worse for the government. The report found that only 14%
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of hotels actually have a policy on harassment and our hotel also currently does not have one,
which is a worrying sign.
Affected stakeholders
The case study report has helped identify various stakeholders of the business which must
be protected from exploitation. It is very essential for the organisation to conduct the activities in
a fair manner in order to attract customers and make them have a safe and great time. The ethical
practices play a major role in attracting customers in order to gain competitive advantage and
earn the profits in an effective way (Teng, and et.al., 2020). The stakeholders of the chosen
hotels play a major role with the business organisation in order to contribute in the welfare and
brand image within the society. The current stakeholders of my hotel have been identified using
both Freedman and Friedman as it involves those own a stake and those who are impacted by the
operations and their current role and subjection towards unethical practices have been stated
herein.
 Employees – The hotel has a large workforce which is understandable as there are
multiple chains and franchises but their pay is very low and there have been multiple
reports of the contracts of workers being renegotiated to reduce their pay which is a very
wrong practice
 Customers – Most of the hotels which have been identified through this case study such
as Apex hotel is only focused on filling the rooms with people rather than ensuring no
harm to any entity occurs behind those closed doors. The case study has documented
various reports of sexual assaults occurring in common hotel grounds which have gone
unaddressed many times.
 Government – The government of UK has been very relaxed towards hotel chains not
following the UK slavery act and it must act before its too late. There must be a list made
of big hotels not following or building frameworks against exploitation with urgency.
Hotels have been treating the government with a very slacking attitude due to no
existence of robust policies to protect women and migrant workers.
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Examples of good and bad ethical practice
Ethical practices are the backbone upon which the hospitality industry rests in the modern
business landscape as the service provided to the customers along with their overall experience
during their stay makes or breaks hotel establishments. There are several good ethical practices
that hotels must follow in order to treat their customers to the best quality of service and stay
possible which include taking care of their rooms and following extremely tight cleaning and
hygiene routines specially to secure customers from the volatile pandemic that has gripped the
UK (Sharma, 2019). The Premier inn in UK is a fan favourite establishment to stay at as it offers
world class luxury rooms, follows strict security protocols and also does not overcharge people
for their stay which is also very ethical.
On the other hand, there are also multiple bad ethical examples present among the hotel
industry of UK where customers are preyed upon and are mistreated such as being provided
cheap quality rooms. A great example is Britannica which despite having a rich legacy has been
lowering in popularity due to bad quality rooms, bad cleaning practices and high prices with
basic amenities missing from rooms such as soap and shampoo.
Recommendations
In order for the hospitality industry of UK to practice better ethical practices and for hotel
enterprises to make sure they are treating their stakeholders fairly and without any turbulent
agendas, the following recommendations have been listed.
 The case study states that there are very few hotels complying with the set standards of
the slavery act of UK which must be regulated harder by the government which must
change and all hotels must make sure their every branch is complying with the set
standards
 The rooms provided to the guests must be properly cleaned and should reflect the amount
of money paid to book them and there must be no differential pricing
 Although the issue of privacy is a complex ethical dilemma, there must be measures put
in place to bolster security of people inside the hotel rooms such as risk management
tools such as smart sound detectors, intensive background checks as the case study stated
that 55% of survey results conducted using the hotels of UK showed no use of such
measures.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Goryushkina, and et.al., 2019. Theoretical aspects of entrepreneurial education for hospitality
industry. Journal of Environmental Management & Tourism, 10(4 (36)), pp.835-841.
McCoy, L., 2020. Ethical practice. In Theory and Practice Public Relations (pp. 369-396).
Routledge.
Ruiz-Palomino, and et.al., 2019. CEO servant leadership and firm innovativeness in hotels: a
multiple mediation model of encouragement of participation and employees’ voice.
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Sharma, E., 2019. A review of corporate social responsibility in developed and developing
nations. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(4),
pp.712-720.
Teng, and et.al., 2020. Exploring ethical incidents in the Taiwanese hotel industry. International
Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, 21(4), pp.422-439.
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PART B
INTRODUCTION
This section of the report will be dedicated on the use of ethical frameworks and theories
in order to detail the ways in which the hospitality industry is currently dealing with its
exploitation issues along with the identification of solutions and recommendations to make
hotels in UK safe for all entities such as women, children and minority workforces.
Discuss and apply two theories of ethics together with its advantages and disadvantages
Business ethics is a very complex and highly varied field as approaches towards being as
sustainable as possible while taking care of multiple stakeholders can be quite a taxing activity to
undertake. Business ethics can help hotels which are currently slumping in popularity in sales to
become better in terms of sales, revenue and more bookings by increasing their brand perception.
It can also help the already established hotels to further optimize the ethical aspect of their
operations in order to make their business much more sustainable a competitive consistently over
a long period of time. Ethics are major part of the way modern businesses are conducted and the
hospitality industry would be well off to prioritize this area for better customer service and
capture a larger market share. Some major theories of ethics have been applied to the hospitality
sector of UK herein along with their pros and cons to better understand the current ethical
dilemmas and find solutions for the same.
Utilitarianism
It is a widely followed theory of business ethics which is predominately based on the
consequences which are derived as a result for particular tasks and actions being committed and
actions are termed as good and bad on the basis of their outcomes which impacts all major
stakeholders involved. The main basis of this theory rests on the fact that the decisions and
thought processes which result in the most amount of people getting positive results is termed as
the right one to follow while the ones which offers less positive spectrum or negative ones are
deemed as not worth pursuing (Alon and Lehrer, 2020).
In terms of the hospitality industry, this theory can be applied to better the current
practices which are lacking across many crucial aspects as many hotels in the UK are not
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focusing on providing services which are crowd pleasing and customer oriented. Although the
dilemma arises out of the client's privacy coming into question which prevents major hotels from
checking rooms but the security and ethical issues are much more important as their solution
impacts a lot of people more positively (Del Baldo, 2020).
Virtue Ethics
This is a new field of normative ethics which has gained pace over the last few years
where the ethical actions pursued are driven by the character of the person rather than the
consequences of their actions. Virtue ethics focuses on the person that is executing a particular
action rather than the nature of the action being committed and instead of analysing the roles and
duties of people, it takes a look at their character. Some of the examples where virtue ethics
result in positive impact include character descriptions involving honesty, courage, integrity,
compassion and fairness (Sison, Ferrero and Guitián, 2018).
The hospitality sector is thoroughly customer oriented and due to this fact, the characters
of honesty and integrity is very important for the people to follow including the management and
all the employees working in varied departments. By prioritizing virtues of honesty, the hotels
can be transparent and unbiased with their clients and this helps avoid cases of mistreatment and
as far as integrity is concerned, it is very important for hotels as managers must be courageous
and ethical enough to take care of their customers and not act against their comfort even if there
is pressure from upper management in doing such activities.
According to the case study, hotels have increased in popularity but they have not
adapted their security measures to prevent the resulting exploitation from taking place. Hotels
such as Apex should train their large workforce to study ethics and inculcate necessary virtues to
make the hotel chain a more secure place. Focus should be laid out on making suppliers and
employees develop standards of integrity which would lead to fairer supply chains and there
should be honesty with the guests to mitigate frauds and financial malpractices. Honesty will
also ensure that hotels like Apex build a robust migration worker policy to prevent mistreatment.
Recommendations
In relation of the hospitality industry it is recommended that the business enterprise can
adopt the Virtue theory where it is very important for the company to concentrate on the ethical
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practices in order to gain competitive advantage and as well as brand image of the organisation
within the society. The main responsibility of managers is to conduct the ethical practices in
order to enhance in the productivity and the other aspect of the business enterprise and some
recommendations have been highlighted below.
 Hotels such as Apex which have been highlighted in the case study for being unethical in
its operations should focus on KPI development without focusing on cost cutting which
has been listed in the case study.
 Hotels should improve transparency, engage in collaboration with other hotels for
bolstering security and establish due diligence processes to protect vulnerable workers
such as minors and women (Smart, 2020).
 These processes must be developed with the view of making the hotels ethical and more
moral from all aspects of operations such as vetting suppliers and running background
checks on suppliers before entering into negotiation contracts, driving improvement
through regulation and control along with methods to address non-compliance to make
the supply chain more transparent.
 The hotels should develop separate ethical policies and frameworks to prevent
exploitation of migrant workers who are already poor and do not manage to fit in within a
homogeneous workforce.
 In order to prevent rampant sue of hotel grounds for sex trafficking as the case study
states such occurrences to be relatively common, separate contracts and security
measures must be taken.
 Hotels must also work closely with the government and ensure that all the major
guidelines and actions listed in acts such as the Slavery Act are being complied with
along with ensuring that proper policy making is being conducted to prevent workforce
harassment.
 Reporting of supply chain operations and major legal vases should also be handled
soundly and women should be employed more in all sectors of the hotel with guarantee
of safety and a solid pay contract.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Alon, S. and Lehrer, E., 2020. Subjective utilitarianism: Individual decisions in a social context.
Journal of Economic Theory, 190, p.105108.
Del Baldo, M., 2020. Overview: Virtue Ethics and Managerial Control. Intrinsic CSR and
Competition, pp.87-104.
Sison, A.J.G., Ferrero, I. and Guitián, G. eds., 2018. Business ethics: A virtue ethics and
common good approach. Routledge.
Smart, J.J.C., 2020. Utilitarianism and its applications. In New directions in Ethics (pp. 24-41).
Routledge.
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PART 2
Reflective essay on Ethical Leadership management
The ethical leadership management is defined as values which need to be taken into
consideration by the leaders within the business enterprise. The actions of the leaders play a
major role in accordance of the moral principles which the company adopt in order to conduct
the day to day operations. It is very essential for the business enterprise to be involve in a good
decision making which is beneficial for the society. It is identified that ethical leadership
management assist in developing a culture within the workplace and this helps in motivating
people to do the job in a right and ethical way (Biswas and Chakraborty, 2019). In context of
hospitality industry, it is very essential to have an ethical leader who is responsible for designing
the rules and the ethical practices within the workplace which will help in building a culture in
order to motivate employees. The values which will drive my ethical leadership in my hotel
will be integrity, trust and fairness as I will ensure that customer safety and convenience is
spearheaded by all operations overseen by me and I will always make sure that no dubious
information or practices are targeted towards my clients along with treating all subordinates
under me fairly and without bias (Mensah, 2019).
In order to become an ethical leader, I have experience that it is very essential to have an
ethical value within me. As being a good leader it is very important for me to understand my
team members. In a team there are several type of people with different cultures and with
different viewpoints. So in this case, it is very important to understand the perspective of an
individual within the team. Treating all the team members equally is another matter of concern
for the leader. I have allowed my team members and encourage them to participate in decision
making which will enhance in their productivity. It is very important for me to develop the
values within my team members in order to perform the various activities in ethical manner. I
have also tried to develop the god communication skills within the team where I listen to my
subordinates so that they are not disappointed with the culture. In order to ensure compliance
with the major laws such as the slavery act of UK, I will help develop reporting frameworks
under my leadership along with establishment of training programmes for the accounting and
auditing teams so that they can help the hotel in fulfilling every legal and ethical formality
towards its existing shareholders.
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By undertaking this report on the current ways in which the hospitality sector is tackling
its major ethical issues and cases of rampant exploitation, my eyes were opened to the cruel
reality of the world as despite being technologically advanced enough to play god, we still suffer
from sex traffickers using large multinational hotels as their playing grounds (Sharma, Agrawal
and Khandelwal, 2019). As an ethical manager, seeing the actual statistics presented in front of
my eyes regarding a huge 55% of hotels not having risk assessment tools, a large percentage of
workers facing contract renegotiations and suffering from extreme work stress while working for
13 hours and earning a mere 16 dollars according to the case study is a very worrying sign. The
case study also helped me understand and plan my actions as a ethical leader of a prestigious
hotel chain as I was exposed to industry relevant data such as the amount of sexual harassment
case being conducted on hotel grounds, the supply chain issues such as non-transparency and
hotels like Apex not focusing on proper reporting of supply chain operations and due diligence
processes.
As an ethical manager, my first step would be to make sure that my department will be in
complete sync with each other and all of the employees will be on a contract which ensures that
their pay is relevant to the current hospitality standards of UK and that their work conditions are
humane, secure and their complaints regarding harassment being immediately addressed on a
first time basis. I will also make sure that my hotel develops a robust and ethical policy
framework to prevent vulnerable workers from exploitation such as minorities, women and
migrant workers by providing them extra benefits and a more solid job security.
I will be ready to take some heat for breaching into the privacy of the clients staying in
my hotel but will inspect rooms from time to time along with running background checks on
them to prevent shady activities from taking place. Lastly the case study report on UK hotels
compliance with the slavery act also pointed out that hotels are not reporting and complying with
the government properly which I will not tolerate at any cost. Under my ethical leadership,
proper reporting of supply chain operations will take place along with full compliance with the
Slavery act of UK.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Biswas, W. and Chakraborty, D., 2019. Impact of organizational values, compassion, and well-
being on industrial disputes: An empirical study. Prabandhan: Indian Journal of
Management, 12(1), pp.36-51.
Mensah, I., 2019. Environmental management concepts and practices for the hospitality industry.
Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Sharma, A., Agrawal, R. and Khandelwal, U., 2019. Developing ethical leadership for business
organizations: A conceptual model of its antecedents and consequences. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal.
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