What is Repsonsible Tourism Reporting?
Responsible Tourism Reporting is a new initiative offering a flexible and 100% customisable independent verification scheme. It encourages small businesses to measure themselves against their own goals and publicly report their annual achievements which are then externally verified by our auditors.
The scheme gives you the opportunity to explain and justify your business choices. You set the standards and the priorities for what is important to your business and your area of operation.
Each responsible tourism policy and report you submit to us should clearly detail:
- Your company's aims for the year
- The impact your business' operations have had
The Responsible Tourism Reporting Initiative will then provide a mechanism for credibly verifying these outcomes year on year and publishing the results, clearly differentiating between those businesses who are making a significant contribution and those who are merely making empty claims.
Get Involved
The Responsible Tourism Reporting documentation will comprise of three parts:
- Your company's responsible tourism policy or documented good practices
- Your company's responsible tourism report including quantifiable annual achievements and accounts of significant efforts over the year
- The verification process as conducted by us
For a more detailed explanation of what you should include and what evidence you should provide, read the get involved section.
Time
Timescale depends entirely on you. If your business already has a responsible tourism policy from which you measure and report your goals each year then all that's left to do is send the documents to us and we can start the verification process immediately.
If not, it is easy to get started; what you need to remember is don't start too big. Focus on one area of your business for the first year then you can gradually add to this as time goes on. Our scheme is flexible meaning you can report on what you want to and produce a report as big or small as you like.
To give you a more informed idea of how long it will take, have a look at the get involved section to see what joining the scheme entails and how much work your company will need to do.
