In an effort to
gather and standardize data related to corporate social responsibility efforts at
hotels, American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) and Cvent have created new
questions for suppliers to answer as a supplement to the Global Business Travel
Association’s request for proposals template.
The joint initiative
includes 47 questions focused on sustainability, diversity, equity and
inclusion that are intended to help travel managers evaluate suppliers on these
issues. To develop the questions, GBT’s Global Business Consulting team (GBC) and
Cvent interviewed corporations, global hotel brands, travel management
companies and consultancies.
The companies say
along with helping travel managers evaluate hotels, the questions benefit
hotels by reducing the time needed to respond to individual requests for
information on these topics.
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“As we
accelerate the return to travel and events, customer requests for supplier data
on corporate responsibility issues are soaring,” says Nina Marcello, a
principal within GBC who first proposed the initiative.
“Together, GBC
and Cvent worked with stakeholders across corporate and meetings travel to
deliver a solution that will increase the availability of relevant
sustainability and DE&I data. This initiative reflects our own
environmental, social and governance commitments and enables suppliers and travel
managers around the world to further their corporate responsibility goals.”
Hotel suppliers
answer the supplemental questions, related to things such as carbon emissions
and leadership demographics, within the Cvent Transient solution. Hotel chains
can also work with their properties to collect and import the information to
their profiles.
“The speed at
which we developed these questions reflects the significance of this work, and
they are already being used by our hotel clients. This initiative benefits the
entire corporate travel supply chain by facilitating the sharing and reporting
of important topics that impact every organization,” says Brian Sullivan, senior
director of product management at Cvent.