The Power of Partnerships

In security, government agencies, and even competitors, should be viewed as partners rather than obstacles. Partnerships provide increased layers of protection and greater resiliency. Hospitality industry associations would benefit from engaging in partnerships to build security awareness, preparedness and capability instead of having to make kneejerk reactions to incidents and crises that impact their members. Partnering within the private sector is part of being a good corporate citizen

The global Covid-19 pandemic came completely out of the blue. Except it didn’t.

The terrorist attack in Vienna was a shock and surprise in one of the world’s safest cities. Except it shouldn’t have been.

In one of our previous blogs, David Langhorn explored The Power of Foresight in crisis management. In it, he explained that although hindsight might be crystal clear, that’s not as valuable in crisis management as having foresight.

This blog will explore another powerful tool: The power of partnerships. Public-private partnership is an often-used buzzword, but an underused resource. We always view competitors as, well, competitors. In security and resilience, especially in the hospitality sector, we should also view competitors as potential partners.

Embrace Sharing as a Two-Way Deal

The reasons why public-private partnerships, especially when it comes to hospitality security, are less useful than they could or should be is found on both sides. Many government security agencies openly advocate and encourage information sharing, but they fail to embrace sharing as a two-way deal. In some cases, when a former security or law enforcement agency employee transitions to a role in the private sector, with security responsibility at a single property, they maintain their networks and receive input from former colleagues. That may help them, but it doesn’t do the good it could if shared more broadly. Sometimes, hotel managers are even wary of allowing their security manager the freedom to fully participate in public-private partnerships. They view them as a risk of losing proprietary information through sharing rather than an opportunity to build relationships that will both help protect them and may also provide commercial advantages. 

On the flip side, most international and national hotel associations lack dedicated competency in the fields of security and resilience. Instead of looking at security and law enforcement agencies as possible partners, they view them as regulatory bodies that place obstacles in the way of their members’ desire to run smooth and efficient businesses. 

Agencies that may wish to engage can’t find a competent person to engage with, and associations that may wish to engage in public-private partnerships are unsure of where, how and to whom they can reach out.

Other industries are different. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) represents a majority of the world’s airlines. They have dedicated resources working hand in hand with governments toward the common agenda of making air travel as safe and secure as it can be. Dedicating resources at that level is effective and efficient. Air travel is statistically one of the safest modes of travel there is and both governments and IATA members benefit without each and everyone needing to make every agreement, every implementation, and every verification on their own.

It Wasn’t Always This Way

It wasn’t always like this in the hotel world. In 2004-2005, the International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA) started a series of advocacy councils including one for security and crisis management. I hosted the first meeting of the group at Rezidor (now Radisson Hotel Group) headquarters in Brussels. Senior VPs from Marriott and InterContinental Hotels Group, the regional security council president from Starwood, the Managing Director of a national hotel chain in Israel were amongst the attendees as was the CEO of the IH&RA, David McMillan. We all agreed that the possible benefits of working in partnership to make hotels safer and more secure were in everyone’s interest. After all, if a terrorist attack strikes a single hotel, every hotel at the destination and the destination itself suffers. They may not all suffer human or material loss, but they suffer a loss of business and, in the case of the destination, a potential loss of trust and reputation.

Despite our optimism, a year or so later, there was a change of management at the IH&RA followed by the disbanding of the advocacy council.

Fortunately, some of the participants at that first meeting kept in touch. In 2007, the global security leaders from Disney Hotels and Resorts, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott, Starwood (now part of Marriott), Carlson Rezidor (now Radisson Hotel Group) came together in Washington DC. Our meeting resulted in the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) creating one of their first sector-specific common interest councils, the Hotel Security Working Group (HSWG).

The hotel groups not only shared information and benchmarked best practices with each other, but the partnership also had truly practical benefits on the ground. Following the Mumbai attacks in 2008, HSWG members travelled to India and held a seminar and workshop for hotel security directors and managers from all over South Asia. Participants included security directors from other hotels in addition to people from the HSWG member brands. The 2009 event was so successful that it became an annual event; each one being held in a different region of the world.

In 2011, during the so-called Arab Spring, the HSWG held daily calls and updates to share information and, again, we went a step further and coordinated evacuation plans so hotels located further from the hotspots were prepared to take in evacuees if hotels nearer the protests were forced to close or evacuate. This was a unique, but effective and efficient example of a cross-company crisis team sharing intelligence and planned actions for mutual benefit and, most importantly, for the benefit of all guests and staff in the affected hotels. 

The HSWG annual seminars were not only an example of partnership between private companies, they were also a shining example of practical public-private partnership. Hotels could afford to send attendees because the hotel groups themselves provided expert trainers and resources. Additionally, and very importantly, the HSWG also received support and input from government agencies and expertise. The US State Department Anti-Terrorism Assistance program, the US State Dept. Counter-Terrorism Bureau, the Royal Thai Police, the Royal Jordanian Police International Training Centre, The Groupe Intervention de Gendermeries Nationale in France, as well as the Tourism ministry of Malta and the Chief Resilience Officer from the city of Paris all contributed to the success of individual seminars or workshops. The partnership has allowed more than 1000 hotel security managers from all over Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia to attend very high-level, very affordable seminars and workshops. This developed Hotel Security Manager skills and knowledge, facilitated local security partnering between hotels and significantly promoted engagement in private/public partnering.

Thus, the training benefits not only them and their individual hotels, it benefits every traveller, every employee and every property owner. 

For their efforts which benefitted the entire OSAC constituent community, the HSWG members were recognized with a distinguished achievement award from OSAC and the International Security Foundation in 2015. 

It Takes Individual Investment

Unfortunately, the fact remains that many successful partnerships are the result of individual initiative, individual commitment and, in some cases, even individual investment, instead of being part of a planned course of action to make accommodation safer and more secure.

Fortunately many governments and the organizations they are members of are beginning to embrace the power of partnership. The Global Counter-Terrorism Forum (GCTF) soft target initiative led to the Antalya Memorandum on best practices for creating successful public-private partnerships. The EU Action Plan for Improved Protection of Public Spaces includes an Operator’s Forum which is the link to private sector partnership and involvement.

I’ve personally had the pleasure of contributing to the development and launch of the GCTF memorandum and the EU Action Plan Operator’s Forum. More recently, the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee invited me to address their meeting as they work with member states to implement UN resolutions on the protection of soft targets and critical infrastructure. Resolutions that led to workshops that we contributed to by sharing our experiences on the benefits of partnership in security and counter-terrorism. Similarly, we have contributed to workshops and expert seminars for the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate and the OSCE Security Committee.

Private/public partnerships will become increasingly important in the cyber threat and security field as companies struggle to meet the challenges of sophisticated serious and organized crime and state actors.  Hotel companies do not have the capability to meet such threats without public support.

While these few examples undoubtedly show the power of partnership in security, intelligence resilience and crisis management preparedness, the question remains as to when hotel industry associations will fully-embrace partnership as a path to strengthening their power of foresight.

Sadly, failing to do so will again lead to the twenty-twenty vision that hindsight will reveal when the next major crisis hits.