Hilton, Hyatt and IHG Hotels & Resorts announced a “comprehensive” human trafficking prevention training curriculum that will be made available to the hospitality industry at no cost. The training will be available to independent hotel owners, operators and brands throughout 2026, marking the first time these three major hospitality companies have collaborated on a training initiative designed to help prevent human trafficking across the industry, according to the announcement.
The updated training, developed in partnership with the three hospitality companies, Protect All Children from Trafficking (PACT), and Unboxed Training & Technology, is “survivor-informed” and leverages live-action video storytelling that will now be available in English and Spanish on PACT’s website for industry use, according to the announcement.
PACT will serve as the training administrator and will provide expertise grounded in survivors’ lived experiences. Unboxed Training & Technology served as the strategic learning design partner, working with the companies to design and deliver a scalable, multilingual learning experience aligned to shared industry standards. Participants will receive technical support throughout the training, scheduled reminders to encourage completion and a certificate upon successful completion.
The collaboration, according to the announcement, exemplifies the AHLA Foundation’s mission to unite the industry against human trafficking through its No Room for Trafficking (NRFT) initiative. The AHLA Foundation is the charitable and workforce‑development arm of the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
All three companies are represented on the AHLA Foundation’s NRFT Advisory Council, whose members champion and shape the hotel industry’s unified anti-trafficking efforts and survivor support. It will be featured alongside the industry’s existing training launched by Marriott International, which has been completed more than 2.6 million times by industry employees since 2020.
Katherine Lugar, executive vice president, corporate affairs, Hilton, and president, Hilton Global Foundation, said, “We’re putting competition aside and partnering across the industry to ensure every hospitality professional has access to the most up-to-date information and tools they need to recognize, respond and report instances of trafficking.”
Joan Bottarini, CFO at Hyatt and chair of the AHLA Foundation’s NRFT Advisory Council, said, “By listening to survivors and learning from hotel teams on the ground, we gained invaluable insights into where guidance could be strengthened to deepen the impact of our existing training.” She continued, “That understanding helped us shape and design an updated training to better support and equip hotel teams in real-world situations.”
Rani Hammond, senior vice president, global human resources at IHG, said, “By uniting around a common purpose, we’ve created a new, survivor-informed resource that can empower hotel teams to make a real difference in preventing human trafficking.”
Kevin Carey, CEO of the AHLA Foundation, said, “Through the AHLA Foundation’s NRFT initiative, our mission is to convene the industry to elevate awareness of the crisis of human trafficking, educate the industry and support survivors on their path forward.”
