Duty of Care: Closing the Gaps in Hotel Safety and Inclusivity

Every traveller has a story. From rooms being reassigned without warning to staff walking in unannounced, hotels often fall short in protecting their guests. While corporate programmes frequently mention duty of care, inclusivity and nuanced risk assessment still lag behind.

Recent industry commentary highlights the challenge. Travellers usually choose hotels based on cost, convenience, and location. Safety and security often rank lower. For solo female travellers, LGBTQ+ guests, or travellers with visible and invisible disabilities, this gap can turn a routine business trip into a source of anxiety—or worse.

At mysa, we believe duty of care should never be an afterthought. Instead, companies should embed it at the heart of every corporate accommodation programme.

Why the Gaps Persist

Companies often treat hotel programmes as a procurement exercise. Negotiations focus on rates, volume, and availability. Security teams only get involved for high-risk countries, leaving everyday traveller risks unaddressed.

As a result, procurement achieves savings, but inclusivity and safety fall through the cracks. Even when RFPs ask additional risk questions, companies rarely clarify how responses influence supplier selection or ongoing management.

Shifting Risk Profiles

One traveller’s safe hotel may feel high-risk to another. Location, cultural context, and personal identity shape each person’s risk profile. For LGBTQ+ travellers in certain regions or solo women arriving late at night, risks multiply in ways generic safety checklists cannot capture.

This is why inclusivity and duty of care remain “inextricably linked.” If a programme ignores the lived experience of different traveller groups, it cannot protect them fully.

What Good Looks Like

Some organisations are raising the bar. For example:

  • Accessibility-focused programmes now use detailed hotel questionnaires covering security measures and DE&I policies.

  • Site visits and video inspections validate responses and build confidence.

  • Traveller feedback loops surface issues quickly, preventing problems from hiding in post-stay surveys.

While valuable, these initiatives highlight the fragmented approach. Without shared standards, corporates reinvent the wheel, and hotels face inconsistent requirements from each client.

A Compliance Roadmap for Hotels

mysa, together with the Travel Risk Academy, is developing a compliance roadmap that adds structure, evidence, and consistency to hotel risk assessment.

The framework addresses nine core areas, including:

  • Perimeter security

  • Emergency preparedness

  • Data protection

  • Safety for vulnerable travellers

  • Inclusive check-in procedures

Hotels demonstrate compliance through evidence—documentation uploads, photos and videos. This approach does not create paperwork for the sake of it. Instead, it builds an evidence-backed baseline that corporates can trust.

All data feeds into VerifyIQ, mysa’s compliance engine. Travel managers and procurement teams use it during sourcing, while risk teams validate hotels against their own standards. The result: a level playing field that is clear, consistent, and actionable.

Building Trust Through Transparency

Technology alone cannot ensure duty of care. Communication and trust matter just as much as compliance checklists.

Travellers need visible signals—like verified accessibility logos or clear emergency protocols—and easy ways to provide feedback when something feels wrong.

Corporate travel teams must act quickly. They should log, escalate, and resolve complaints or near-misses. Trust grows not from policies on paper but from action when it matters.

Global Standards, Local Nuance

Multinational programmes introduce additional complexity. Safety expectations in London or New York may not apply to remote or high-risk destinations. Here, “minimum standards” meet “local nuance.”

mysa’s roadmap balances these factors. It defines non-negotiables—verified fire safety, secure entry systems, hygiene protocols—while allowing context-specific adaptations and maintaining visibility for corporate clients.

Moving Forward: From Obligation to Empowerment

Duty of care often appears as a compliance obligation. Yet, the opportunity is bigger.

Embedding inclusivity and safety into accommodation programmes empowers travellers. It reduces stress, builds confidence, and lets people focus on their work instead of risks.

For hotels, transparency and inclusivity differentiate them. Properties that embrace these values gain traveller trust, win more RFPs, and strengthen corporate partnerships.

Closing Thought

Every traveller deserves to feel safe, seen, and supported. Procurement alone cannot achieve this goal. It requires collaboration between buyers, suppliers, risk teams, and travellers.

With tools like VerifyIQ and the compliance roadmap, the industry can move from box-ticking to meaningful assurance. Corporates gain transparency, and hotels gain clarity.

The hotel RFP may remain the industry’s backbone, but duty of care must become its heartbeat. It is time to raise the standard together.