Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement

Introduction

In line with the ‘Modern Slavery Act 2015’ this statement sets out the steps that The Independents Hotel Reservations Ltd (The Independents) have taken to ensure that Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking is not occurring in our organisation or to our best knowledge, in our supply chains.

Modern Slavery is a term which encompasses slavery, servitude and forced and/or compulsory labour. Human Trafficking is termed as arranging or facilitating the travel of another person with a view to that person being exploited.

Organisational Structure & Activities

The Independents is a privately-owned Hotel Booking Agent based out of our offices in Taunton. We operate in and around the UK and Ireland.

We provide corporate hotel booking services to UK companies in order to facilitate hotel bedroom and conference bookings. We have developed our own systems and software to offer a bespoke solution to our clients.

Supply Chain Structure & Activities

As we provide a hotel booking service to our clients, The Independents are essentially first in line in the supply chain.

Second in line are the hotels that we book and Galileo/Travelport who aggregate hotel inventory to our hotel booking system.

Due Diligence

We hold regular review meetings with our clients and hotel chains to monitor our Service Level Agreements and as part of these reviews, we have introduced a check on compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

All second line supply chain providers are UK-based, they are governed by UK legislation as we are and thus significantly reduces the risk of contravention of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The Independents operates a zero-tolerance approach to Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.  We are committed to acting in an ethical manner and upholding business integrity in all activities with our stakeholders.

The Independents acknowledge that we do not control and are unable to control the conduct of individuals and organisations within our supply chain.

As such, we try to engage with our second line suppliers to both convey to them our Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement and to gain an understanding of the measures taken by them to ensure Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking is not occurring in their businesses.

Awareness

All employees have an obligation to familiarise themselves with all our procedures to help in the identification and prevention of Modern Slavery and to conduct business in a manner such that the opportunity for and incidence of Modern Slavery is prevented.

Review

Following its initial adoption, this Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement will be reviewed by the company’s Managing Director on a regular basis (at least annually) and may be amended from time to time.