Black Meetings and Tourism

Nov/Dec 2012

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ICI•pg_3-13__BMT_pg3-58 1/22/13 1:13 AM Page 4 PUBLISHER'S MESSAGE am pleased to report that the NAACP has decided to reactivate its Opportunities & Diversity Report Card effort at the end of November. The revamped program will be initiated with the release of the Hotel & Lodging Industry Report Card, which will grade major hotel brands in a number of crucial areas, including workforce diversity, supplier diversity and ownership, among others. From my perspective, this is good news indeed! When the NAACP prepared to release its first Lodging Industry Report Card in 1997, few if any of the hotel brands were eager to participate and provide the information requested by the civil rights organization required to calculate the grades. Some even refused to return the report card surveys at all. At the time, I sat on the NAACP Advisory Board for the Lodging Industry Report Card along with NABHOOD President Andy Ingraham and several other familiar faces like Robert Johns of the National Dental Association. Marriott Hotels was the only major hotel brand with a functioning diversity department and a management level person specifically responsible for working on diversity issues. The I initial report card did not reflect well on the lodging industry at all. None of the dozen or so brands received satisfactory grades, and several were even tagged with Ds and Fs. Needless to say, those with less than desirable grades, which was most of the hotel brands, scrambled to bring diversity officers on board and establish diversity initiatives. And for a while, there seemed to be some degree of improvement. People of color were hired and promoted, diversity programs launched, more AfricanAmerican suppliers were contracted, and most importantly, there was finally some dialogue about the importance of inclusion in the lodging industry. Much praise goes to then NAACP President/CEO Kweisi Mfume and one of his right hand aides, Linda Haithcox, who helped administer the program. After seven or eight years, the report card program ended, and sadly, the small gains realized during that brief focus on diversity issues in the lodging industry slowly disappeared as well. Without the threat of the embarrassment of a low grade hanging over their heads, lodging industry movers and shakers, no matter how well intentioned they may have been, took the path of least resistance and went back to business as usual. If nothing else, that whole experience reinforced something that I already knew from my days as a foot soldier in the Civil Rights Movement. Change does not come without pressure being brought upon the institutions needing change. While the new NAACP report card only grades five major brands as opposed to the 13 hotel chains surveyed in the old report card, this time it will also involve destinations and CVBs in the grading process. This makes all the sense in the world, since far too many convention & visitors bureaus are guilty of fostering racial economic inequality in their workforce makeup as well. Another main difference with the new report card is that it will not be issued annually. Hotel companies will have a little more time to institute programs to correct practices that led to undesirable grades than the old annual report card allowed. However, hotel companies that were satisfied with a B or C grade with the old grading system will be in for a rude awakening this time around. After the initial Report Card is issued at the end of November, any company that doesn't show marked improvement in the 18-24 months it takes for the next report card to be issued will most likely receive an F grade. Look for the NAACP Lodging Industry Report Card in the January/February 2013 issue of Black Meetings & Tourism. If you want to truly leverage your purchasing power as meeting planners, tour operators and travel agents, use the information provided in the report card to help guide you in your buying habits, and take an active role in literally changing the face of our industry. Solomon J. Herbert Publisher/Editor-In-Chief E-Mail: BMandTMag@aol.com Black Meetings & Tourism is published bi-monthly by SunGlo Enterprises, 20840 Chase St., Winnetka, CA 91306-1207 •Telephone: (818)709-0646/Fax: (818) 709-4753 Copyright 2012 by SunGlo Enterprises. All rights reserved. Single Copies, $6.00 Subscriptions $45.00. Postage Paid at Pasadena, CA. •Postmaster send address changes to Black Meetings & Tourism, 20840 Chase St., Winnetka, CA 91306-1207. 4 B M & T ••• November/December 2012 ••• www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com

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