Someone Else's Problem?

There is an article today from Deloitte called Hotels Beware: Do Not Check In Corruption. I think it's a good read, because corruption is something, like human rights, that the meeting industry never talks about and should. The classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy called this Someone Else's Problem, or SEP, and was defined as "an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual".

Deloitte suggests that hospitality companies do background checks and surveys as part of a compliance program, as well as implement policy and training on anti-corruption. Perhaps hotel companies do this type of training in-house, but it has never hit the educational programming of any meetings industry associations I can think of. Perhaps some of these associations should create an SEP track at their annual conferences to raise awareness of these kinds of issues. Logically, this would be part of any CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility tracks, which too often focus on the trendy environmental sustainability issues (important, but only part of the puzzle).