TourCert – Certificate | CSR-Tourism-Certified

On March 11, the former federal environment minister, Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, awarded the new certificate “CSR-Tourism-Certified” of the “forum anders reisen” (far – literally translated forum traveling differently) to the first 15 tour operators for their sustainability achievements at the ITB Berlin.

The acronym CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility and circumscribes businesses’ contributions to sustainable development that go beyond legal requirements. A guideline to CSR reporting was developed by “forum anders reisen” under the management of “Kontaktstelle for Umwelt & Entwicklung” (KATE – literally translated Contact Point for Environment and Development) and a European network of tourism experts. This guarantees the quality and comparability of the CSR reports in tourism for the first time ever. The project was awarded with a national exceptional prize in the European competition “First European Award on Corporate Responsibility” in 2009. It also received third place in the “Best Practice Award” of the Travel Industry Clubs in 2008.

In the CSR process, all important areas of business as well as the supply chains will be inspected to see if they meet sustainability criteria. The systematic compilation covers anything from paper use in the office to the size of travel groups and the type of transportation. The results of the data collection are recorded in so-called sustainability or CSR reports. A certification board including specialists in tourism, science, politics as well as environmental and developmental support organizations verifies the sustainability reports by means of the key indicators in a further step. One such key indicator is the average CO2 use per traveler per day. If all requirements are fulfilled, the business will then receive the ”CSR-Tourism-Certified” certificate.

The Austrian representatives on the certification board are Prof. Lund-Durlacher of MODUL University and Dr. Christian Baumgartner of Naturfreunde International (Nature Friends International).

Award Ceremony at ITB Berlin, 13.3.2009, representatives of the certified tour operators and members of the certification board.

The following businesses were certified in Berlin: Arkadia Yachtcharter & Segelreisen (Hamburg), Auf und Davon Reisen GmbH (Gummersbach), avenTOURa GmbH (Freiburg), Demeter-Reisen (Nürnberg), INTI Tours e.K. (Deggingen), Neue Wege Seminare & Reisen GmbH (Euskirchen), Nomad. Reisen zu den Manschen (Gerolstein), One World – Reisen mit Sinnen (Dortmund), Radissimo GmbH (Karlsruhe), ReNatour (Nürnberg), Rucksack Reisen (Münster), travel-to-nature GmbH (Ballrechten), Urlaub & Natur (Karlsruhe), Weltweitwandern GmbH (Graz) und Windbeutel Reisen (Köln).

More information can be found at: www.forumandersreisen.de and www.kate-stuttgart.org.

Contact
Dagmar Lund-Durlacher, MODUL University Vienna, Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Am Kahlenberg 1, 1190 Wien, Austria
dagmar.lund-durlacher@modul.ac.at | www.modul.ac.at