Tourism and Poverty Reduction - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 130

radical and ill-focussed. Less than six years later, the same issues could
be discussed comfortably in most Board rooms. (Corporate Social
Responsibility Forum, 2002, cited in Mowforth & Munt, 2009: 199)
While some tourism businesses which are committed to CSR focus on
changing their environmental practices, others are making a solid commit-
ment to social responsibility, including poverty alleviation. PPT strategies of
private sector stakeholders are noted in Table 4.2, which highlights, for
example, that fair employment strategies, mentoring and support of local
businesses and local procurement, can all bring direct benefits to poor peo-
ples. It appears that partnerships between the private sector and other stake-
holders can lead to particularly impressive results, as in the case of
collaboration among foreign hotels, central banks and the International
Finance Corporation of the World Bank in Berimbau resort in Brazil. This
involved support to local businesses, including agriculture and fishing coop-
eratives, a recycling factory, a cultural group and a textile cooperative, and
resulted in 1300 jobs as well as a ten-fold increase in the earnings of artisans
(Barrowclough, 2007: 634; UNCTAD, 2007: 114-115).
Some interesting initiatives by travel industry groups have also emerged
in recent years particularly in the UK and Europe, perhaps spurred on by the
presence of advocates of responsible tourism and PPT in this part of the
world. Certainly, the NGO Tourism Concern has tried to work closely with
travel industry groups in the UK, introducing them to the concepts of CSR
and fair trade in tourism, and developing a tool they can use to audit their
social impacts (Scheyvens, 2011; see also Chapter 7). They also launched a
campaign in 2004 to urge tour operators to take responsibility for the labour
practices in tourism businesses they worked with internationally. This led to
some UK tour operators embedding labour conditions in their policies, and
labour conditions are also included in a checklist for hotels promoted by the
Federation of Tour Operators (Barnett, 2008: 1001).
In addition, the Tour Operators Initiative (TOI) is a non-profit initiative
established in 2000 with the support of UNEP, UNWTO and UNESCO
(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). It pro-
motes sustainable tourism practices, including cooperation with destina-
tions and supply chain management (Telfer & Sharpley, 2008: 53). TOI has
published the following toolbooks on its website: 'Supply chain engagement
for tour operators - 3 steps towards sustainability' and 'A practical guide to
good practice: managing environmental and social issues in the accommo-
dation sector'.
It is interesting also to observe changes taking place among very large
tourism operators. TUI Tourism and First Choice Holidays PLC merged in
2007 to form TUI Travel PLC, which is the largest tour operator in the
world in terms of people moved, estimated at 30 million annually. TUI
had a good environmental programme, and First Choice had a good social