Planeta Forum

[planeta]

TOPIC: Triple Bottom Line Business Structures and Strategies
1. Evaluation of technical assistance needs
2. Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreements
3. Triple Bottom Line benchmarking and monitoring -- costs and approaches
4. Ecotourism certification
5. Philanthropy

MODERATOR: Toby Bloom

SETTINGS: Active participants can reply to this topic

PARTICIPANTS:
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/emerging.html#part

REFERENCE

Ecotourism Emerging Industry Forum (Nov 1-18, 2005)
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/emerging.html

[Toby]

hello all! i look forward to an interesting discussion over the next few weeks. I am especially interested to know your collective thoughts on certification- do you think it can work in terms of value adding, and what do you think is the future of certification?

Please feel free to post early and often- I will be checking in to discuss this and any other relevant topic. We'll be in touch soon!

cheers,
Toby

[redbilb]

Does certification mean anything? Absolutely, but only when you target the correct niche market. If you want to look at a resort with an outstanding record, take a look at Casuarina Beach Club and their list of awards and certifications.

http://www.casuarina.com/news/awards.html

I met Loreto Duffy-Myers at the 6th Annual Sustainable Tourism Conference in Havana, Cuba a couple of years ago. Her experience is that it helped the resort immensely. She is the Environmental Manager there.

Their efforts towards certification not only made the resort more ecologically friendly, it initially saved the owners a lot in operating expenses. Now that they are targeting a knowledgeable and discerning clientele, they are able to reduce volume and increase revenues per person stay.

A lot of public education is required by the certification organizations and the tourism industry to help foster this client base. This is especially true in North America where this concept is relatively unknown to the masses.

Rod Bilz
FRi Ecological Services

[planeta]

Greetings, all

Ron Mader here. I will be mostly be a listener in this section as I hope we can hear directly from SMEs in the field about how they manage to balance the "triple bottom line."

Years ago I developed a model of three interlinking circles, what my colleague John Shores calls the "Mader Model." It's much the same idea that to evaluate ecotourism we need to review contributions from profitable businesses to local community development and environmental conservation. Michael Kaye's classic joke rings in my ears: What do you call an ecotourism business that does not make money?

Answer: An ex-ecotourism business.

That said, achieving the three goals is a constant balancing act, particularly given the rather short-term interest given to 'ecotourism' by conservation groups, development agencies and politicians.

As to ecotourism or sustainable tourism certification, my belief is that we are 20 years too early. Most programs around the world have failed. We have seen no independent reviews, so most analysis depends on program coordinators explaining how the brilliance of their work.

When it comes to defining what constitutes ecotourism or sustainable tourism, there is little consensus. And when it comes to developing global accreditation schemes, there's a growing demand to "stop the steamroller."

What should we pay attention? I would start with national tourism websites in which we see almost no mention of ecotourism. Countries may indeed foster sustainable tourism initiatives, but they do a poor job of informing independent travelers or media (a theme I will pick up in the marketing topic). I would also ask whether we have reliable statistics about the 'ecotourism' market.

REFERENCES

Definitions
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/definitions.html

Rethinking Ecotourism Certification
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/certification.html

Web Survey of Ecotourism
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/webeco.html

[Toby]

good morning all! Interesting ideas, examples and questions. Mr. Bilz's example of Casuarina brings up another interesting question- Is it because of the efforts needed to receive certification that Casuarina was able to raise it's revenue, or because of the certification itself? It is difficult to prove a positive relationship between certification and point-of-sale increase in revenue.

Ron brought up another topic which merits discussion. How is ecotourism and/or sustainable tourism being promoted to the public? Ron said that national tourism websites rarely mention ecotourism. My experience at the grassroots level has been just the opposite, where every tourism operator labels its products as ecotourism! How do we strike a balance between these two ends of the continuum?

The majority of my experience with ecotourism and sustainable tourism has been working with people from the community who have or want to become active members of local sustainable tourism and ecotourism operations. I worked with projects attempting BOT transfers in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon, and provided technical assistance to private operators, NGOs and directly to communities in the Andean region of Peru. Currently I am providing tecnical assistance with national guide accreditation and nature guide training on a project in Honduras.

I have seen very viable locally owned and operated operations that stand up to triple bottom line standards (check out Chalalan ecolodge in Bolivia), and I have seen products of donor agencies that seem destined to fail from the minute they are implemented, for various reasons (I'm sure we've all had this experience!). What is the key to building financially sustainable ecotourism operations, and what should our role be in providing technical assistance? Are BOT transfers the way to go (can anyone cite a successful example? the two I worked with were still in the pre-transfer phase), or is there a more viable model?

[Toot Oostveen]

[quote="Toby"]hello all! i look forward to an interesting discussion over the next few weeks. I am especially interested to know your collective thoughts on certification- do you think it can work in terms of value adding, and what do you think is the future of certification?

Please feel free to post early and often- I will be checking in to discuss this and any other relevant topic. We'll be in touch soon!

cheers,
Toby[/quote]

Hi, it is nice to be in an online forum for the first time of my life. I am also interested in the certification discussion. I worked some years ago on tourism certification for small tourism farms in Europe (for ECEAT). In Europe there are about 70 or 80 certification systems in tourism. Tourists hardly recognize them, some like Blue Flag are well known because the advantajes for the tourists are clear. Most of them are very confusing and it seems that tourists donít ask for it, donít recognize the advantages (a research was done in The Netherlands). Certification systems seems to provide more advantages for business to business contacts or as a tool to enhance the performance and quality of the business itself. And most of all, it is often expensive to keep monitoring so the systems are not sustainable because tourists don¥t seem to be willing to pay. Toot Oostveen

[jsweeting]

Certification is all very well if it provides a business with a return on investment. Does the $X spent getting certified get you $X+ in additional sales? Or at least get you $Y in savings from efficiencies etc. (and if $Y is greater than $X so much the better!)

My experience is that there is not yet a viable market and that the real reasons for pursuing certification schemes are more related to other core business issues such as efficiencies, product quality, risk management, insurance etc. In fact I have seen a growing trend of companies going through a certification program and then not bothering to re-certify because they aren't getting the market benefits of the branding associated with the seal of approval...I wish this weren't the case.

I do see huge potential is B2B focused certifications -- thereby minimizing the efforts and costs of bulk purchasers (particularly cruise lines and tour operators) to be able to ensure that environmental and social issues, as well as health and safety are included in their contracting processes with their suppliers...

[George Duffy]

James, Ron I could not agree with you more.

There is a really good body of knowledge on the website below for anyone hoping to create sustainable behaviour in the public. Doug Mackenzie-Mohr PHd is the author.

http://www.cbsm.com/

I think that another model for us to consider is the FSC label on sustainably harvested wood. I think the pressure on (and by) large guys like Home Depot etc can have quite large effects. These can create the critical mass required to change practises as well as educate the public.

And to bring in another institutional name what about Starbucks? Everyone likes to take shots at them, and no doubt there are some real issues, but Starbucks does at least make steps to walk the talk. What can we learn from them?

I would like to think that we may be able to partner with some non-traditional entities (like Starbucks) whose board of directors have clearly stated policies of operating sustainably. Can we leverage with some of these large corporations some how?

[Meganew]

Xavier Font and I completed a whole chapter titled Sustainable Tourism Certification Marketing and its Contribution to SME Market Access for the book Black, R.S. and Crabtree, A. (eds.) (2006) Ecotourism Quality Control and Certification. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxon, UK.

I'm happy to share this with anyone who would like to write me directly to request it. We looked exhaustively at all the questions raised in this forum. This paper went through blind review and extensive re-editing based on review.

Here is the abstract.

The question of how well certification of sustainable tourism can contribute to building market access for business enterprises has important implications for how NGOs, donors, and governments approach their support of sustainable tourism. Most literature to date has indicated that sustainable tourism certification has two benefits, 1) improving the quality of management and services of companies and the sustainability of enterprises, and 2) improving the market for certified enterprises. Policy makers have supported certification projects with the understanding that both of these benefits were realistic outcomes of certification projects, without reliable research at hand to validate these views. This article looks at the thesis that sustainable tourism certification has genuine market benefits. The authors conclude that while certification may be a valid method to involve businesses in quality and sustainability oversight of their businesses, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that certification of sustainable tourism will have market benefits and that such benefits should not be used to justify government, NGO or donor support of tourism certification.

We looked at both direct consumer market benefits and B2B benefits.

Megan

[oliver]

Hello, people, this is Oliver Hillel from the Philippines. I just wanted to add to this very fruitful discussion on certification with things I learned in my project in Palawan (see www.sempnp.com for more details). In Northern Palawan, we did not even begin a certification process, but we brought up the idea several times and "started the ball rolling", for stakeholders to discuss whether they could create their own standards or join an established one (our technical recommendation). Apart from everything else, certification can:
- help define a product category, i.e. what you will sell. As a DMO, it's harder to sell products that are too heterogenous. In this way, the PROCESS of pursuing any kind of certification is positive insofar as it makes different facilities and operators think what are their common standards - and indeed it often brings up the issue of standards for SMEs, in several cases for the first time...
- increase management capacity. Someone already brought this up before in this Forum - the management exercise of examining the feasibility of getting certified stretched the management muscle of several businesses here. Couple of years ago I read in Fortune that the reason that something like 70% of FORTUNE 500 companies are ISO certified is not necessarily that a label gives them value, but that superior management capacity and the ability of keeping standards are closely correlated.

Even though at SEMP we knew that we would not have time to certify anyone, we started the process for these two reasons (plus another one already mentioned by Megan, which is raising standards from the Department of Tourism's point of view).

By the way, please check the "Infrastructure" topic, too... Let's get it rolling as there are important things to be learned from participants on this and I don't want to be speaking to myself...

[inamdar1]

If appropriate, I'd like to pick up on the point about BOT agreements and Ron's comments about the lack of independent reviews.

Has anyone carried out a review of the types of agreements and structures that have been used over the years in different parts of the world, and tried to look at their successes and failures?

Some are Build, some are build-operate, and some are build-operate-transfer. Lots of different models out there - whats worked and why; whats failed and why?

If anyone has done this, I'd love to have them share their experiences!

[Toby]

Hello all! Iím thrilled to have points of view from so many different participants! A few comments Iíd like to makeÖ

First, I think Oliver reinforced very eloquently the point I was trying to make yesterday, that often it is the procedure, not the final product (whatever certification the entity is pursuing) that benefits an operator the most. Where I was speaking about revenue (often, the steps taken to become certified lead to reduced operating costs, rather than increases at point-of-sale), Oliver made a similar point about management capacity .To this end, perhaps the goal should not be certification, but rather a framework for identifying goals, specifying the product being sold, how to develop an environmental policy for your company, etcÖNow if only such a ìblueprintî existed and was relevant in various settings!

Second, as requested, letís touch on the issue of BOT transfers- Indeed, from my experience, this is a difficult procedure, specifically with the ìTî in BOT. Involving local community members in the operation is often very successful, but I think the transfer is the stumbling point. In fact, I would argue that this is why sustainability is so elusive, not just in ecotourism, but in all sustainable international development. As I mentioned, the two projects that I worked with that were in the process of the BOT transfer were either very far off from the actual transfer date (so it was difficult to judge how successful it would be in 10 years), or they were extremely close to the transfer (2 years) and sorely lacking in transfer of management skills, which I would argue is the key to a successful transfer! I have never seen a review (nor a set of guidelines) for this model, but it would definitely give us some insight as to how to improve and/or increase probability of success for this model.

Finally, letís discuss partnerships with big namesÖ I agree that these partnerships go a long way in pressuring responsible behavior, as well as educating the public. Still, at Home Depot, sustainably harvested wood costs more, and at Starbucks, the fair trade coffee is not displayed with the rest of the coffee- you have to request it specifically (of course, I live in Honduras, so itís been a while since I went to a Home Depot or StarbucksÖ)- but you have to start somewhere! The challenge is that in tourism, I am not aware of any industry giant that is recognized by the public and widely accessible to the average consumer (aside from online). Any ideas?

I recently did a search for a sustainable travel agency, and couldnít find any. There are tour operators such as Lindbladt and others that sell responsible travel packages, but I havenít found any traditional-style travel agencies that sell a variety of operators, countries, and products that ONLY sell sustainable travel. So perhaps the next step could be something along these lines?

[Meganew]

Hi Megan here,

For those of us interested in corporate monitoring. There are a number of other approaches I am very interested in trying out.

First of all, I think we have a lot to learn from the Corporate Social Responsibility movement and also from the Global Reporting Initiative. It has the benefits of helping to systematize and monitor corporate perfomance while moving through improvements in management already discussed. And the great thing about it is that it is a global system that is accepted worldwide as a system for corporate monitoring.

I am presently coordinating CSR discussions with colleagues here in Vermont.- We plan to give a panel talk next year at our Vermont Businesses for Social Responsiblity Conference. I also have worked with the World Bank CSR department looking at how tourism can be incorporated into this global system via a study in Cambodia. I studied extensive documents that they had on hand on how tourism stacks up to other industries. We are really the only industry not extensively involved in this global reporting system. Why not? CSR advocates are actually quite confused about why tourism does not join the fold.

Have other folks been investigating this as a way to move forward on doing productive monitoring with their businesses? This might get a little difficult of course for really small businesses, but as businesses grows might we not all consider that Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting is a wonderful way to establish a system for monitoring our businesses?

Megan

[Toby]

Good morning!

I don't think that tourism hasn't "joined the fold" of CSR- In fact, the Business Enterprise for Sustainable Tourism (BEST) initiative focused on just that. this is the a statement taken from a press release that I came across:

BEST strives to create awareness of and appreciation for the value of sustainable travel practices among four constituencies: business, travelers, communities, and the media. BEST serves as a resource to the travel and tourism industry in the area of sustainable travel. BEST identifies, analyzes, and encourages exemplary business practices that contribute to the natural, social, economic, and cultural environments of host communities.

I think Megan touched on an important point, though. How can we motivate small operators to do CSR reporting, and how do we make it economically possible for them? Is there a widely accessible guideline?

[jsweeting]

Megan et al.,

I had the pleasure of working with Giulia Carbone and Oliver Hillel (both Ex-UNEP) and the Tour Operators' Initiative for Sustainable Tourism Development on a program to develop CSR reporting guidelines for the tour operator sector back in 2002. At the time members of TOI ranged from multi-billion dollar corporations to niche market inbound operators. TOI ended up partnering with CERES and the Global Reporting Initiatve to create the first sector guidelines for a service industry. This was a monumental project that Giulia guided -- many international meetings and lots of hard work later - a tour operator sector supplement was born...please find it at:

http://www.toinitiative.org/reporting/documents/TourOperatorsSupplementNovember2002.pdf