Beira, who worked in sales for twelve years at Accor, uses her considerable skills to cajole her bosses into supporting her projects—including a hotel training program that accepts fifty underprivileged teenagers each year. "I show people numbers to prove to them how these projects have changed lives," she says. Beira travels around the country, speaking to Accor's suppliers about how they can launch their own social-responsibility programs. Beira's passion reflects that of her boss, Gilles Pélisson, CEO of Accor and nephew of one of its co-founders. Last year, Pélisson launched the company's Earth Guest program, dedicated to sustainable tourism. Its objectives include reducing water and energy consumption in occupied rooms by five percent this year, as well as doubling the number of hotels offering "fair trade" products and the number of employees trained in fighting sex tourism within the next three years.

At the most progressive hotel chains, the commitment to social responsibility is driven either by a visionary management team or by a leader like Pélisson or the Marriott family, who have long been committed to community service. Accor, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, and India's Taj Group, to name a few, have clearly defined global social responsibility policies—such as commitment to energy saving, fair employment practices, community outreach, and management assessment systems—articulated in internal guidelines sent to all their properties. Other companies, such as Four Seasons, Hyatt, Peninsula, and Shangri-La, either have implemented programs at individual properties on a more ad hoc basis, or focus more on charity. Four Seasons, which supports cancer research and numerous other causes, plans to launch a comprehensive policy this year. Hyatt says local hotels know best how to meet community needs. Shangri-La supports a children's charity in China, and Peninsula also supports various charities. But "charity is not the same as social responsibility," says Guyonne James, program manager at Tourism Concern, a London-based nonprofit organization that promotes travel which benefits communities. "Responsible tourism is about the way you do business."

Sometimes a hotel company's community involvement goes beyond economic benefits, extending to matters of life and death. Accor's Pélisson recently joined 30 other European CEOs in signing a commitment to fight AIDS. In Brazil, where 0.5 percent of the population ages 15 through 49 is HIV positive, the government offers free anti-retroviral drugs to infected patients, and posters at the airport warn against child prostitution and the danger of AIDS. But there is still such a stigma attached to the disease—and ignorance about what causes it—that uneducated Brazilians often don't get care even though it's available. I was eager to see how Pélisson's commitment translated into action on the ground.

In the back office of the Sofitel Rio Palace, Nagi Naoufal, head of Sofitel's Latin America business, tells me that he lost an employee to AIDS in the 1990s when he was running the Sofitel hotel in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast. At that moment, he started handing out condoms with employees' paychecks. He later helped launch the company's worldwide AIDS and anti-prostitution programs. Accor's Brazil hotels run frequent health programs to educate staff about the risk of AIDS ("We must remind them every six months," says Naoufal), and its hotels stock condoms and brochures denouncing child prostitution in the guest rooms. "To avoid talking about these things," says Sofitel general manager Philippe Godefroit, "is to say yes."