There are many types of reporting systems, as well as related awards and eco-labels.
However, although different, they share some similar components. These are (Bien 2008):
• Voluntary enrolment by businesses;
• Well-defined standards and criteria;
• Assessment and auditing;
• Recognition and awarding the use of a logo;
• Periodic follow-up audits to renew the assessment and the certification;
• Continual improvement;
• Transparency;
• Participatory mechanisms to define standards.
As for the fairness and objectivity of a reporting program, they are ensured by the following elements:
• Non-discrimination: systems should be available to all applicants who meet the standards and whose activities are covered;
• Systems should be free of undue financial consideration and independent of business size and membership in groups and organisations;
• Standards should consist of clearly defined criteria, specifically related to what is being assessed;
• The auditing organisation should be able to make impartial evaluations and certification decisions, based on clearly defined criteria;
4.2 Main Characteristics of Reporting Systems 29
• The reporting system organisation should allow the participation of all parties significantly concerned with the activity being certified, with respect to the content and functions of the certification system;
• The person who evaluates a business should be separate from the entity that decides whether or not to award the system and both should be independent of whoever provides consulting service to help the business qualify;
• The reporting body should be free from commercial or financial pressure that might influence decisions;
• The reporting should award a logo and include a sunset clause that requires re-application after a given time period, to protect against greenwashing;
• There should be established procedures for revising and changing criteria and standards and so on.
About the main distinctions among reporting programs, they basically concern:
• The auditing procedure (first- vs. second- and third-party audit);
• The focus of the reporting program (product- vs. process- based systems or process- vs. performance-based systems) (Bien2008).
As for the auditing procedure, while first-party audit is basically a self- evaluation, second-party audit implies that a consumer or an industry body assures that the product meets the minimum standards. Third-party audit means instead that a neutral, independent third party evaluates the compliance of the product or of the company with clearly defined standards.
As for the type of standards, while product standards reflect the appropriate characteristics a product is expected to have, a controversial topic is whether processes or performances should be assessed and eventually certified. Process standards (e.g. ISO 9000 or 14001) refer to the appropriate characteristics of the process put in place, from the creation of the product to final distribution. They assess and certify businesses that have established and documented systems for assuring the improvement of quality or environmental and social performance.
However, they do not determine any specific performance results other than those required by law. Consequently, businesses receive a certification for their efforts, not for their actual performance.
On the contrary, performance standards assess and certify whether or not a business or activity complies with objective external criteria. This allows a direct comparison between two businesses to show which one has better results (e.g. how many litres of water per guest per night the two hotels consume?). They measure achievements and results according to tangible criteria, not intent. They are more transparent and can include environmental and socio-economic criteria within and without business. They can offer different levels of logos reflecting different levels of performance.
Most of the available reporting schemes seem to be process-based and to focus on the awareness of the company about its impacts, but not on the results it achieves (Bobbin 2012a). However, process-based systems ensure that a company docu- ments its performance, and more importantly, that it has internal controls in place in order to continue to maintain good performance. Whether a performance-based
system can certify on the basis of one or a few measurements of key indicators, a process system can ensure that the indicators are constantly monitored and that there is a person and a budget available to do so.
Since both standards have their own pros and cons, there is the growing consensus in tourism that systems should incorporate elements of both process and performance standards (Bien2008).
Currently, large tourism operators, like hotel chains, airlines and big tour operators, generally opt for international process standards such as ISO 9001, which provides a quality assurance accreditation, or ISO 14001, which provides specific environmental accreditation. One of the advantages of these schemes is that
“they brought with them improved management practices and processes, although they were see as bureaucratic by smaller enterprises” (Goodwin2005).
Starting from 2010, the ISO 26001 is at work in Europe. The International Organization for Standardization has decided to launch an International Standard providing guidelines for Social Responsibility (SR). The guidance standard has voluntary to use and, unlike other standards, it does do not include requirements and thus it is not a certification standard.
In addition to aspects discussed above, which are common to all reporting programs, systems assessing in particular the business responsibility can be differ- entiated in relation to the approach followed. According to Goodwin (2005), it is possible to identify and distinguish the “certification approach” and the “responsi- ble tourism approach” (Table4.1). They are not mutually exclusive in principle, but they imply a different perspective in assessing tourism company responsibility. In more detail:
• Schemes based on a certification approach apply a process- and/or performance- oriented perspective and are adopted in particular by businesses engaged in assessing their internal processes and supply chains and improving their man- agement. However, this approach rarely provides tourists with an enhanced experience, since it is often difficult for consumers to check the effects of certification on product quality and to monitor the company improvement year on year.
• Schemes based on a responsible tourism orientation adopt a market-driven perspective. They focus on product standards, reflecting the appropriate charac- teristics a product of responsible tourism is expected to have. This approach responds to tourists who demand a more real encounter with the environment and the community, based on values of respect for other people and their places.
These tourists are informed consumers who continuously review the products and recommend them to others when they are satisfied. This approach both responds to changing consumer demands and enables people to experience the difference, creating demand for new products.
While the first approach does not encourage products’ differentiation and does not bring significant marketing advantages, the second perspective contributes to distinguish responsible tourism products from others and to produce benefits for companies, who are able to better answer to and attract responsible tourists.
4.2 Main Characteristics of Reporting Systems 31
However, responsible tourism and certification approaches are not incompatible or mutually exclusive. The certification approach is more useful as a means of ensuring compliance and improvement in the supply chain, while the responsible tourism perspective is more appropriate for engaging and reassuring responsible tourists (Goodwin2005). Therefore, a combination of both approaches seems to be a valid solution.
References
Bien A (2008) A simple user’s guide to certification for sustainable tourism and ecotourism. CESD - Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, Handbook, n. 1
Bobbin J (2012a) Researching responsible tourism reporting. International Centre for Responsible Tourism, Occasional Paper OP. 24
Bobbin J (2012b) Introduction to responsible tourism reporting. The development of a transparent verifiable reporting system suitable for small to medium sized enterprises to monitor their responsible tourism good practices. Responsible Tourism Reporting.http://www.rtreporting.
org/about/news-and-publications.php. Accessed 8 Aug 2013
Dodds R, Joppe M (2005) CSR in the tourism industry? The status of and potential for certifica- tion, codes of conduct and guidelines. CSR Practice Foreign Investment Advisory Service – Investment Climate Department, Washington DC
Goodwin H (2005) Responsible tourism and the market. International Centre for Responsible Tourism, Occasional Paper 4 November
Kalish A (2002) Corporate futures. Social responsibility on the tourism industry. Tourism Con- cern, London
Russillo A, Honey M, Rome A (2007) Practical steps for funding certification of tourism business.
CESD - Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, Handbook 2
Table 4.1 Comparison between the certification approach and the responsible tourism approach (Goodwin2005)
Responsible tourism approach Certification approach
Driver Market led Supply-side governance and CSR
Users Consumers Investors and Businesses
Auditing Consumer auditing Third-party auditing
Orientation Output orientated Process orientated
Transparency Highly transparent and content rich Opaque—devoid of content Consumer
engagement
The enterprise makes some specific statements about the experience—part of the contract
Low—the consumer know only that a certification has been awarded
Focus Economic, social and environmental Primarily environmental Funding No subsidy—self-financing Expensive—subsidised
Legal Contractual obligation Very limited liability
Improvement Consumers expect to see the improvement
Certified commitment to continu- ous improvement
Marketing value Strong marketing value—high levels of product differentiation focused on experiences of particular places and communities
Very weak marketing value—no differentiation between prod- ucts and experiences Competition Significant—there is a ratchet effect as a
result of competition and increasing consumer pressure
Limited—tends to produce a level playing field
Chapter 5
The Analysis of European Reporting Systems for Responsible Tourism and CSR
Abstract This chapter proposes a detailed overview of reporting systems for assessing tourism business responsibility, in terms of compliance with responsible tourism values or CSR principles. The analysis focuses, in particular, on programs that have been mainly developed and applied in Europe and addressed to tour operators. The analysis includes eight reporting systems: the Responsible Tourism Standards of the Italian AITR; the system of the French ATES; the Enterprise Indicator for Responsible Tourism of the Spanish QUIDAMTUR; the CSR Reporting Standards of the German KATE and TourCert; the ATR system of the French ATT; the Tour Operators’ Sector Supplement of the international initiatives TOI and GRI; the system of the English Responsibletravel.com and the Travelife Sustainability System of the European initiative Travelife. The main characteristics of every system have been described (objectives, approaches, standards and indi- cators, auditing procedure) and a final comparison has been developed in order to identify main commonalities and differences. In addition, the main issues related to these programs have been identified and discussed: the difficulties met by small- and medium-sized enterprises in implementing them; the different attention paid to the triple bottom line dimensions; the inactivity of some systems versus the great consensus reached by other programs.