At least two federal lawsuits and one motion to consolidate 21 existing cases were filed Dec. 9 on behalf of women claiming they were sexually trafficked at hotels and that the hotel companies knew this behavior was happening and profited from it. The suits accuse several major hotel companies. The consolidation filing marks the first time the hotel industry is facing an action related to this issue as a group, according to Reuters.
A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of New Hampshire on behalf of plaintiff "K.B." names InterContinental Hotels Group, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Best Western International and Marriott International as defendants for having "known for more than a decade that sex trafficking repeatedly occurs under their flag throughout the country. Rather than taking timely and effective measures to thwart this epidemic, the Defendants have chosen to ignore the open and obvious presence of sex trafficking on their properties, enjoying the profit from rooms rented for this explicit and apparent purpose instead."
The suit names hotels located in the New Hampshire municipalities of Concord, Keene, Tilton and Gilford, and requests a trial by jury and damages "in an amount which will effectively prevent other similarly caused acts and adequately reflects the enormity of the Defendants' wrongs and injuries to the Plaintiff due to the Defendants' faulty conduct."
A separate suit filed in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, names "F.M." as the plaintiff against defendants Best Western International, Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Red Lion Hotels Corp., and uses nearly the exact language in the introduction as used in the New Hampshire lawsuit. The Texas locations cited include Irving and Frisco, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. This suit, too, demands a jury trial and the same type of unspecified damages as noted in the New Hampshire case.
New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg filed a "motion for transfer of actions" in U.S. federal court in Columbus, Ohio, seeking to consolidate 21 existing multidistrict cases from Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Oregon and Washington that are suing hotel companies on behalf of trafficked individuals. It includes the suit filed in New Hampshire. Consolidating would "prevent inconsistent rulings ... and overlapping pretrial obligations, reduce costs, and create efficiencies for the parties, courts and witnesses," according to the consolidation motion.
Additional hotel companies named in the consolidation request included Choice Hotels, Extended Stay America and Hilton, among smaller hotel companies and hospitality management companies.
Human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking, long has been linked to the hospitality industry. About 75 percent of victims surveyed by human trafficking hotline operator Polaris in 2018 reported using hotels at some point during their trafficking.
The travel industry has made efforts to fight trafficking in multiple ways, including signing ECPAT-USA's Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct, known as The Code, which is a voluntary set of business principles hospitality companies can implement to prevent sexual exploitation and trafficking of children, and offering training to employees to identify the signs of human trafficking and how to report it if suspected. Several hotel companies named in these suits have signed The Code and offer human trafficking awareness training to their employees.
In a survey conducted earlier this year by BTN, 72 percent of 164 travel buyer respondents were aware that human trafficking is an issue within business travel, and 40 percent were aware of supplier efforts to train employees and raise awareness.
"Hotels need to take this issue seriously," said Jennifer Keltner, a former travel manager who has spoken out against human trafficking for more than a decade and whose nonprofit, Rescue Party Give, draws awareness to the issue. "Hotels have to realize that more lawsuits are going to come out as these victims understand they might be able to get some form of compensation from the hotels. The pressure is on in different states to see what other states are doing on the issue."
Keltner added that hotels need to have protocols in place so guests who call in incidents feel safe and not at risk themselves. This also will help travel managers feel secure that a hotel partner did their part to address the situation and not look away.
"Human trafficking is a horrific crime that robs 40 million men, women and children of their freedom. Anyone who commits this illicit crime should be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said American Hotel & Lodging Association president and CEO Chip Rogers in a statement to BTN. AHLA has led the industry-wide campaign, No Room for Trafficking, launched in June, that is designed to train every hotel employee in the United States.
"Every major U.S. hotel brand along with thousands of independent hotels have already begun training their employees," according to Rogers. "As an industry we recognize the severity of this problem across the globe and are encouraged that more than a million hotel employees have already been trained."
These lawsuits acknowledge that the hotel industry has begun to train employees on how to spot the signs of human trafficking but allege that it may not have started soon enough or that the companies are not enforcing their own policies.
Each hotel company named in the lawsuits in separate statements to BTN said that their company condemns all forms of human trafficking and offers awareness training to their employees to help combat the issue. Many included franchises as well. None would comment on the pending litigation. Weitz & Luxenberg did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
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