Corporate social responsibility

Scroll down for “GT” posts tagged with “cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity” (CSR) in travel & tour­ism. Accord­ing to Investo­pe­dia, CSR is a “self-reg­u­lat­ing busi­ness mod­el that helps a com­pany be socially account­able — to itself, its stake­hold­ers, and the pub­lic. By prac­ti­cing cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity, also called cor­por­ate cit­izen­ship, com­pan­ies can be con­scious of the kind of impact they are hav­ing on all aspects of soci­ety, includ­ing eco­nom­ic, social, and environmental.”

Tags are inform­al; an after­thought to con­tent cre­ation. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog nev­er gets bogged down with tag­ging accur­acy or con­sist­ency. Feel free to com­ment on any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and dis­cus­sion and appre­ci­ates help­ful feedback.

From tourism to coffee, young Thais blend profit with social good

October 7, 2017

Young Thais like Aliza blend profit with social good, from tourism to coffee

Six years ago, Som­sak “Pai” Boonkam drew up a plan with two vil­lages in north­ern Thai­l­and for tour­ists to stay with loc­al fam­il­ies and immerse them­selves in hill-tribe cul­ture. The aim was for the vil­la­gers to see some fin­an­cial bene­fit from their coun­try’s multi-bil­lion-dol­lar tour­ism industry. Pai was sure it would be a hit with […]

Read More From tourism to coffee, young Thais blend profit with social good

Hotels train staff to read signs of modern slavery


modern slavery hotels. Old-school room keys.

Adult guests who check in with a child, repeat cash book­ings, or late check-ins without lug­gage could all be signs of mod­ern slavery under guid­ance newly issued to staff at a Brit­ish hotel chain. The 400 staff at Shiva hotels — from recep­tion­ists to human resources staff to clean­ers — will be trained as part of a com­pany-wide cam­paign to […]

Read More Hotels train staff to read signs of modern slavery

Is orphanage tourism a form of modern slavery?

July 21, 2017

Orphanage tourism and slavery. Tonle Sap, Siem Reap, Cambodia: A little girl making money for her family by posing with a snake in a water village of Tonle Sap Lake. Source: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cccefalon via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tonle_Sap_Siem_Reap_Cambodia_Girl-begging-for-money-with-snake-01.jpg

Many travel & tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als are com­ing to believe that orphan­age tour­ism is at best a prob­lem­at­ic means to gen­er­ate income to sup­port chil­dren; at worst a form of mod­ern slavery. Slavery!? Mod­ern slavery is widely prac­ticed in the tour­ism sup­ply chain of devel­op­ing coun­tries, accord­ing to Aus­trali­an aca­dem­ics Joseph M. Cheer, Kent Goldsworthy, Leigh […]

Read More Is orphanage tourism a form of modern slavery?

Aviation, tourism can do more to stop human trafficking


tourism stop human trafficking

The US leads in an inter­na­tion­al effort to train air­line and air­port staff to spot and report poten­tial human traf­fick­ing. How­ever does avi­ation lag behind oth­er tour­ism sup­ply chain sec­tors? Report by the Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion. Flight attend­ant Donna Hub­bard was deeply con­cerned when a couple car­ried a boy who was sweat­ing, leth­ar­gic and appeared […]

Read More Aviation, tourism can do more to stop human trafficking

How to make a hotel green & responsible: Get on with it!

June 5, 2017
3 Comments

How to make a hotel green & responsible: Just do it!

Hos­pit­al­ity industry pro­fes­sion­al John Mor­ris Wil­li­ams shares a little of his long exper­i­ence ini­ti­at­ing and driv­ing com­­mon-sense meas­ures at hotels and in host com­munit­ies. Mr Wil­li­ams makes it clear that he favours real action over expens­ive cer­ti­fic­a­tion, believ­ing that dis­cern­ing sup­ply chain part­ners and guests are cap­able of per­ceiv­ing green-wash­ing and cyn­ic­al CSR. UPDATE, June 2021: […]

Read More How to make a hotel green & responsible: Get on with it!