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Welcome to one of the World's Most Ethical companies!

Rezidor has just enjoyed our third consecutive record year of hotel openings. And we are proud that more and more places around the world are discovering that our hotels are great places to stay, great places to work and that we have great brands for owners to invest in.

Profitable growth is key to the long-term success and stability of our company. But one look at the finite size of our planet - and at the resources it contains - always reminds me of the shared responsibility we have to take care of our small, spinning sphere.

Rezidor has a long history of being a responsible company, with environmental and safety and security programmes dating back more than 20 years. These programmes have been - and will continue to be - constantly developed, improved and expanded. For this, we are grateful to our motivated employees who deliver Responsible Business each day - and to our owners, who have aligned their operations with our approach and whose support of our efforts is invaluable.

The success and value of these programmes is also benefitting our brands globally: Carlson Hotels Worldwide has adopted the Living and Leading Responsible Business training programmes, developed by Rezidor. An agreement has also been signed with Carlson to jointly develop safety and security programmes, combining our resources for the benefit of all guests, employees and owners of our brands on a global basis.

We openly acknowledge that our increasing size - which may give us greater visibility and influence in the marketplace - also gives us an increased opportunity to take on an even greater share of that responsibility.

In our increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, we feel that power and influence can be used - not to become even more powerful and influential - but to become more responsible.

So I am very deeply proud and honoured that prestigious Ethisphere Institute (US) has named Rezidor as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for 2011. This is the second year running that our company has been accorded this impressive accolade.

And we will continue our commitment to expanding our company responsibly and to developing, operating and franchising hotels that will be seen as positive examples - providing excellent, sustainable services and employment opportunities in their communities.