Palladium Hotel Group has established three priority work groups in the deployment of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy, encompassing; People, Community and Planet on a global scale.

This comprehensive strategy dubbed, ‘Palladium Cares’ will help to strengthen the organisation as an agent of positive change in the society.

According to Jesús Sobrino, Chief Executive Officer of Palladium Hotel Group, throughout its more than 50 years of history, Palladium Hotel Group has been developing Corporate Social Responsibility actions in different areas and now, through the structure of the initiative that encompasses ‘Palladium Cares’, it is taking another step forward in this commitment.

“Palladium Cares was created with the aim of consolidating the company’s historic commitment to CSR, giving continuity to existing projects, strengthening them and promoting new ones. We focus, firstly, on our internal team, to continue to have a positive impact, in parallel, on our communities and the surroundings. We recognize in social work an element that cultivates and strengthens our spirit and the bond with our collaborators,” Sobrino said.

The internal social responsibility component aptly named, ‘OUR PEOPLE’ will integrate actions aimed at improving the lives of the Palladium Hotel Group nearly 13,000 employees. The company conducted a needs analysis, through extensive consultation with employees and from this process, 98 new initiatives were ascertained.

Some of these initiatives have already begun to be implemented, with the aim of improving the internal customer experience. These measures include improvements in leisure and free time, wellness and accommodation and employee transfers and represent a global investment of $6 million dollars.

As a signal of the company’s commitment to these projects and implementation mechanism, CSR Cabinets have been created in each hotel that include co-workers from the top management profiles to the newest employees. These Cabinets, meet periodically with the Palladium Hotel Group’s CSR corporate department to analyse the current plan and implement constant improvements.

“At Palladium Hotel Group we have a strong commitment to our employees. We are convinced that our people are the main active of our company and we must demonstrate this by giving them all the support and accompaniment they need, both in material aspects and in the monitoring and training of their careers,” said Gloria Juste, Corporate Director of Social Responsibility at Palladium Hotel Group, who leads this cross-cutting area of the company.

The second component named, ‘OUR COMMUNITY’ will work on the way forward for two major projects that will take place in Europe and America with a positive impact on the communities where the company operates.

In America, the group has started working on the creation of Professional Training Centres with the support of local public entities, with which opportunities for professional training and education will be developed.

These activities will be implemented in the different destinations where Palladium Hotel Group is present, starting in Brazil, Mexico and Jamaica. These entities will facilitate access to the labour market for those people who carry out the proposed training programmes, under the premise that the best social assistance is an employment opportunity.

In Europe, the ‘4 causes to take action’ project is being launched, and it will be developed in four phases throughout the year, focusing on four specific causes: childhood, inequality, the planet, and care for the elderly. This project will be articulated around a catalogue of opportunities for collaboration between each of the hotels that the group operates in Europe and the local NGOs selected for the project.

“Through internal action plans, we will improve the quality of life of our employees, while through the collaboration campaigns we have designed with external entities, we will leave a positive footprint in the communities in which we operate in each destination,” Juste said.

The third component ‘OUR PLANET’ will promote various environmental protection measures, thus minimizing the effect of its tourist activity. The group will continue to reinforce these actions globally and will follow up on the implementation audits with the aim of evaluating their effectiveness.

This follow-up will make it possible to update a continuous improvement plan, in which several lines of action are highlighted: the action plan to continue with the reduction of plastics, the sustainable use of natural resources such as water, the reduction and correct management of waste, and the protection of biodiversity.

With the implementation of these priority groups, the organisation has implemented several projects including the Agricultural Production Centre in Brazil. The agritourism initiative where employees and customers will be able to broaden their environmental cultural vision of our regional public, providing courses in environmental education, meliponiculture and care of the planet and production optimization.

In Jamaica, they have established a Fish Sanctuary which is a protected area consisting of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove wetlands that protect the food source, nesting sites and marine life. Together with the Lucea Fishermen’s Association (LFA) and UNWTO, the aim is to raise awareness among fishermen about sustainability and preservation of the ecosystem on which they