Holiday Inn 2009 Annual Report Download - page 33

Business review 31
Managing risk in hotels
Process and framework
IHG has an established risk management process and framework embedded in owned and managed hotels in all regions. The long-term
strategic goals are aligned with the IHG core purpose Great Hotels Guests Love and include three key elements:
• safety and security of guests, employees and other third parties;
• brand strength supported by operational excellence in risk management at all hotels and corporate locations; and
• maintenance and promotion of the reputation of the Company.
Our approach has been to enable and support hotel owners, staff and corporate functions to manage risk effectively. This is accomplished
by giving them a systematic approach and framework to follow and by providing them with tools to do the job.
The Global Risk Management function aims to share specialist knowledge and capability globally whilst being aligned to the operational
structure of the business to ensure local circumstances are understood and respected and greater engagement of our people is achieved.
Safety and security risks in hotels
A strategic framework for hotel safety and security has been designed for owned and managed hotels and is illustrated below, showing
the identified groups of risks and describing the management activities carried out to mitigate those risks.
Mitigating hotel safety and security risks
Risks are identified at hotel level through various means including intelligence gathering, quality audits, risk management assessments and
internal audits. They are also identified as a result of incidents, customer audits and self-assessment. Hotel management discuss issues at
monthly safety meetings and action plans are developed. Risks are prioritised, assigned and improvement actions are identified, progressed
and monitored. Action plans are reviewed at appropriate levels in the organisation for issues that need to be escalated either to drive action
or to develop common solutions.
IHG believes it has a mature and capable systemic and systematic approach to managing hotel safety and security which both reduces the
likelihood and impact of events. The embedded culture within IHG makes hotels and the corporation more resilient to unexpected or
unidentifiable risks.
Major risks to the business
The Board is ultimately responsible for the Group’s strategy, risk management and system of internal control, and for reviewing their effectiveness.
In order to discharge this responsibility, in 2009 and early 2010 the Board considered the 2009 Major Risk Review developed as described above.
SAFE
HOTEL
SECURITY CRISIS &
INCIDENT
FIRE
SAFETY
LEISURE
SAFETY
GUEST
SAFETY
FOOD
SAFETY
STAFF
SAFETY
MANAGING
RISK
RISK
PROFILE
POLICY &
STANDARDS
REVIEW
& REPORT
WAYS OF
WORKING
RISK
FINANCING
TRAINING
& COMMS
OPERATE
& CONTROL
BUSINESS REVIEW
Hotel safety framework
The red wheel illustrates the groups of risks
identified and actively managed by IHG’s risk
managers around the world. They work with
hotels and their management teams in order
to minimise such risks and keep hotels safe
and secure.
As a result of our holistic approach to risk, we are
able to maintain and develop risk management
strategies to assess and control individual types
of risk. This has involved developing policies,
standards and guidelines, raising awareness
levels, training staff on controls and systems
to be used to manage and mitigate risk and
reviewing and reporting upon progress and
emerging risk. These management activities
are represented by the right hand wheel.