Letter from the President
During the first quarter of 2007, and pursuant to the realization of
our first Annual Report, NH Hoteles has brought its system of
sustainability management up to date through a process of
internal involvement of all areas of the company provided by
relationships with different stakeholders -shareholders, employees,
clients, suppliers, communities in which we operate and
organisations and foundations- as well as the environment.
We have pinpointed our focus on responsibility and sustainability
as a growth opportunity, consolidation and innovation in line with
the creation of shared benefit. We want to influence the
responsible value that hotel activity has on our societies and on
their economic and social development at the local, national and
international levels.
This responsible value, which is intrinsic to hotel activities, is
evidenced first in the creation of direct stable employment, as
well as the generation of indirect employment. Our industry per
se is also an excellent manager of the diversity part and parcel
with working in tourism and hospitality. Understanding diversity
and knowing how to manage it with respect to both clients and
human resources forms part of one of NH Hoteles' finest activities
as an expanding global company.
Consequently, the expression of our responsibility in the internal
sphere centres on the promotion of policies of diversity,
conciliation and equality, and we are proud of the harmonious
coexistence of 114 different nationalities among our staff, where
women represent 53.5% of the total and 33% of executive
positions. In Spain's case this representation in executive
positions for women rises to 51% of the total Hotel Directors.
Another of our goals is the training, management and
development of talent, since people are the engine of growth that
carries forward into development, benefiting not only our clients
but all of society and the communities where we operate.
Environmental management is an area in which our contribution
must be more obvious by minimizing the environmental impact
generated by hotel activity. We depend on a sustainable vision
through the entire business cycle from the very outset, with
design and construction of hotel buildings based on a unique
management system (NH Benchmark), which allows optimising
the surface for construction by rationalising the use of a scarce
resource and achieving an important energy savings as a result.
All of this comes combined with the rational use of natural
resources, promoting renewable energies and the introduction of
accessibility criteria.
This environmental focus also extends to our hotel maintenance,
where we introduce energy-saving management systems for day-
to-day affairs and try to offer services and products with this
efficient management of resources in mind. It becomes
increasingly more relevant to sensitise our employees to
environmental behaviours within the NH Hoteles training plan.
Unquestionably, 2006 has been a decisive year for the
advancement of responsibility and sustainability at NH Hoteles,
when it was decided to create an Corporate Responsibility
Corporate Area, highly relevant to the organizational structure,
and reporting directly to the President and Board of Directors.
This is the area responsible for designing and implementing a
Strategic Responsibility Plan to integrate all the policies,
programs, actions and initiatives of responsible value that the
company carries out. It inspires other new ones and sets
objectives and indicators, allowing us to improve our integrated
business management and accountability in that way.
NH Hoteles aspires to continue improving in its responsibility and
sustainability as an engine of development and a tool to face the
social and environmental goals set for us by a global world. We
will then achieve becoming the hotel chain of reference by
integrating and responding to the expectations of all our
stakeholders in the most complete manner possible.
Gabriele Burgio
Executive President of NH Hoteles
IT IS MY GREAT PLEASURE TO INTRODUCE OUR
FIRST CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY ANNUAL
REPORT. THIS REPORT IS AS MUCH A PUBLIC
ACCOUNTABILITY OF OUR ECONOMIC, SOCIAL
AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS DURING 2006 AS
THE EXPRESSION OF OUR COMMITMENT TO THE
INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY IN
ALL OUR ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS.
NH Corporate Responsibility 2006
5
Gabriele Burgio
President of NH Hoteles