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Several companies want to be the Michelin Guide equivalent for post-pandemic hotel safety standards. But early corporate travel agency buy-in puts Sharecare and Forbes Travel Guide's partnership at an advantage.
Any hotel company can roll out a heightened cleaning protocol in response to the pandemic — and most did. However, it isn’t always clear what properties are effectively combatting the risk of virus and which are merely putting on what some label “hygiene theater.”
Digital health company Sharecare — whose early investors include Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Mehmet Oz — along with Forbes Travel Guide aim to be the hotel industry’s go-to cleaning verification program, and their latest backers may be the key in making it stand out above other emerging third-party competitors.
“In the new normal, well-being is going to be at the forefront,” said Sharecare CEO Jeff Arnold. “The next layer is this new expectation that’s being shaped: Where I stay, work, and play – is it safe?”
Sharecare and the Forbes Travel Guide partnered on the Sharecare Health Security VERIFIED third-party system to evaluate and confirm an individual hotel’s cleaning regimen. Think of it as an extension of FTG’s five-star evaluation system but for health and safety rather than services and luxurious amenities.
Twenty-four hotels around the world are the first to receive the Sharecare verification seal of approval, the company announced exclusively Tuesday to Skift. They include properties like the Goring Hotel in London, the Baccarat Hotel in New York City, and Atlantis, the Palm, in Dubai.
But Sharecare’s greatest catalyst for hotel sa
