In focus: CSR and sustainability in the tourism-supply chain

A major new development took place during this year’s ITB Berlin Convention, at the world’s leading travel show, in the form of the first comprehensive study into corporate social responsibility (

A major new development took place during this year’s ITB Berlin Convention, at the world’s leading travel show, in the form of the first comprehensive study into corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the tourism sector. ITB Berlin is once again investigating the subject of CSR in the travel industry. As the partner of GATE e.V. in this undertaking, ITB Berlin is lending its support to the symposium taking place in November, which is entitled “Sustainability all along the line? CSR in tourism supply chains.”

“Increasingly, the subject of sustainability is becoming a quality factor for the socially-aware traveler. This makes it even more important for tourism companies to face up to their responsibilities and not just to use CSR as a marketing instrument,” according to Dr. Martin Buck, director of the Competence Centre Travel and Logistics at Messe Berlin, in explaining his organization’s commitment to this subject.

The two-day conference will examine the importance of tourism-supply chains, the verifiability of CSR criteria, and transparency in the implementation of CSR tourism destinations. The aim is to present the subject of sustainability and CSR in tourism-supply chains from a number of different perspectives – for the benefit of representatives of the tourism industry, academics, those employed in development cooperation, and anyone else with an interest in these subjects.

The discussions will focus on the ways in which CSR can be implemented in the tourism-supply chain, the role played in this context at the particular location by cultural factors in the organizational structure of tourism, and how to ensure transparency for tourism suppliers in Germany, as well as for tourists themselves. Participants will also investigate the fundamental questions of the importance and effect of the implementation of CSR criteria on the local population at tourism destinations. The presentations, which will be given by leading figures from the industry, will also be accompanied by discussion groups, using the open space method, allowing anyone to introduce their own topics.

The symposium will take place on November 20 and 21, 2009 at the Euro Business College Hamburg. Applications can be submitted online to: www.gate-tourismus.de.

About ITB Berlin and the ITB Berlin Convention

ITB Berlin 2010 will take place from Wednesday to Sunday, March 10-14. ITB Berlin will be open to trade visitors only from Wednesday to Friday. Parallel with the trade show the ITB Berlin Convention will be held from Wednesday to Saturday, March 10-13, 2010. This is the world’s largest specialist convention for the industry. Full details of the program can be found at www.itb-kongress.com. ITB Berlin is the world’s leading travel trade show. In 2009, a total of 11,098 companies from 187 countries exhibited their products and services to the 178,971 visitors, who included 110,857 trade visitors.

ITB Berlin and ITB Asia now on Twitter

Web 2.0 services, including blogs, social networks, and Twitter, are also gaining importance in everyday business activities, a development that has been immediately recognized by ITB Berlin and ITB Asia. Both of these events are making use of the micro-blogging service Twitter, as a means of entering into a dialogue with journalists and exhibitors, as well as the trade, and of supplying them with the latest information. The world’s leading travel trade show is twittering at http://twitter.com/ITB_Berlin, while the world’s largest travel trade show for the Asia-Pacific region is covered by http://twitter.com/itbasia.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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