Friday, 5 February 2010
The Key to Making London Hotels Fit For 2012 Summer Olympic Games
With just three years left before the much awaited 2012 Summer Olympic Games, many are claiming that the London Hotels are not fit to host the tourists that are projected to arrive by 2012. London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948.
Hotels in London are known worldwide for providing the best services, the most luxurious accommodations and the expertise to thrive in the hospitality business for years. Then what else make London Hotels unfit for 2012?
The actual reason has nothing to do with hotel facilities, nor with the increased rates in hotel accommodations. The answer: low wages for hotel staff and crew.
According to a report given by Unite the Union and London Citizens, the largest civic alliance in the capital, hotels in Central London are said to be giving very low wages to hotel workers including staff and crew, cleaning agents and hotel managers.
The report titled, Rooms for Change: Putting London hotels on track for the Olympics, explains that "the heart of the problem is the treatment of workers and the management's reliance on a transitory, migrant labour force that is hired and fired."
Rooms for Change also lobbies for an agreement to be signed by hotels which sets out minimum terms and conditions for all workers so that they will have enough rights to protect themselves from abusive employers. This report also proposes the key to making London hotels fit for 2012: adopt the London Living Wage or LLW which is set at £7.45 at present.
The LLW has been campaigned for since 2001. It is endorsed by Mayor Boris Johnson and already supported by many companies, agencies and firms such as KPMG, HSBC, Barclays, the Tate Gallery, the Department of Families, Schools and Children, Tower Hamlets Council and the Westfield Shopping Center.
This campaign justifies that in order to make the London Hotels competitive; they should invest in strengthening their workforce. The competency of a hotel does not solely rely on its physical attributes such as the grandeur of the suites and the elegance of the architectural designs from Victorian and Renaissance Periods. The true competency of a hotel depends on the people that man the institution. By adopting the LLW and investing on service training and English classes for their workers, London Hotels will create a milestone of improvement in the state of their services.
Hilton Chain of Hotels has held meetings with Unite the Union and West London Citizens on a regular basis since 2007, but LLW has never been adopted to any hotel.
As for Unite the Union and London Citizens, they have three more years to prove that their solution in promoting the hotels' competency is the right way to achieving success. Whether this LLW is the real key to making London Hotels fit for 2012 has yet to be answered in a few years time.
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