Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Tourism

(Chennai, 23/12/2009): Companies are increasingly being judged not just by the products and profits they make, but also by the ways in which these profits are made. Yet, there is no consensus on what "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR) actually means. To improve the understanding of its possible contributions and limitations, a consultation on CSR in tourism held from 15th to 16th December, 2009, in Chennai, India, focussed on CSR concepts, instruments and practices within the tourism industry and beyond. Participants found that community monitoring mechanisms can be a useful tool to make tourism businesses more accountable.

T.T. Sreekumar, facilitator of "Kerala Tourism Watch", a group of civil society organisations who co-organised the consultation, emphasized the need to delink philanthropy from CSR. Furthermore, companies should also delink their branding efforts from CSR. Sumesh Mangalassery of "KABANI - the other direction", organiser of the meeting, went on to stress: "But we cannot delink Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from the negative impacts of tourism we are facing in the destinations as a result of corporate irresponsible actions."

"The term CSR cannot be used for just any good thing that is happening in tourism", said Heinz Fuchs of Tourism Watch, a desk of the German Church Development Service (EED). EED cooperated in this consultation to share visions and perspectives with Indian civil society organisations, community representatives and other stakeholders, with a view to strengthening the social responsibility in tourism.

Responsibility vs. Accountability

In a developing country context, where legislation to protect community interests and the environment is either weak or often violated, CSR plays a less prominent role than in the North, where it can be regarded as one of the "next steps" up the sustainability ladder. According to T.T. Sreekumar, accountability has to precede any CSR. Human rights and the rights to livelihood of the local people need to be respected.

However, he also emphasized the complexity of the tourism sector, which is rather fragmented. "The example of asking tour operators to take into account whether land in the location where they are sending tourists is undisputed shows how complicated it is." He also found that there are hoteliers who claim they can do whatever they want because they do a lot of charity.

Tourism impacts

"We have very bad experience with the corporates. They are wreaking a lot of havoc," said Pushpa Rayan, East Coast Road Research Group. "The government is promoting cruise tourism and medical tourism. Organ donations are highlighted to promote medical tourism." David, CRY Net collective, Andhra Pradesh, shared some of the experiences of the indigenous peoples of Andhra Pradesh, where the government acquired tribal land for tourism, even though tribal people may sell their land only to tribals. As they do not have the possibility to be trained for hotel jobs, the only job opportunities open to them will be unskilled positions like cleaners and watchmen, etc. He also showed pictures illustrating that waste from the hotels is dumped just beside the resorts. Sajeer Abdul Rehman of "KABANI - the other direction" highlighted examples of fishermen on the coast of Alappuzha in Kerala being displaced by resorts. "Taking the responsibility with which hotels are entering here, we can guess how responsible they are going to be", he said. T.T. Sreekumar pointed out that in all other sectors, child labour is decreasing, but not in tourism, where there has been a marginal increase in child labour.

CSR vs. Corporate Legal Responsibility

Highlighting the problems of commercial sexual exploitation of children in Goa, lawyer and social activist Albertina Almeida stressed the importance of legislation over voluntary codes of conduct. "Codes are not enough. We need laws!" she said. "Then civil society can come in." Communities can make use of the Right to Information Act. For example, if a hotel gets tax exemptions, they can ask for the basis for these exemptions.

According to Dr. Shanmugha Velayudhan, two fifths of the companies supporting projects of a charitable nature do it to avail tax exemptions. Therefore, there is a lot of money involved, which implies that the state has to play a major role in regulating the activities of companies in this regard. CSR is also used as a tool to promote and improve a company's public image. This often helps companies to avoid regulation; to gain legitimacy and access to markets and decision makers. Dr. Shanmugha found that there is little or no knowledge about CSR within local communities. "No serious efforts have been made to spread awareness about CSR", he said.

The Role of Communities

According to Prof. A.C. Fernando, Loyola Centre for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, not only the CSR activities in which companies are involved should be monitored. The companies should also be scrutinized, in case there are land issues, labour issues, etc. Community monitoring will be based on the respective situations.

"Communities can monitor", says Father Arulraj from the Coastal Protection Forum, Kanyakumari - a famous pilgrimage destination in Tamil Nadu, at the southern tip of India. "We are saying to the tourism industry, sorry, you have nothing to do here, we don't want you here." Tourism has taken over areas where fishermen were keeping their nets, etc. He stressed that access to the sea is very essential for the fishing communities. "You cannot cut it. It is like separating a mother from her child." However, even though communities say "you are unwelcome", tourism players are still coming in a big way. Yet, Fr. Arulraj gave an example how a local community in Kanyakumari district had successfully resisted the construction of a hotel project that was going to violate the Coastal Regulation Zone notification (CRZ).

In Alappuzha in the state of Kerala, local people consider tourism as a reality and want to get rid of its negative effects. They also want a fair share in tourism. As Deepak Dayanandan, Community Watch on Tourism, Alappuzha, highlighted, entire beach areas in the district are in the hands of the tourism lobby. There are an uncontrollable number of houseboats in the backwaters and tourism is adding to the pollution. A local community mechanism to monitor tourism has been initiated by KABANI in this area, with almost 40 members from different sections, who have recently started their work.

Consumer Pressure

As Prof. A.C. Fernando emphasized, CSR has not always been voluntary. Consumer pressure has been playing an important role. Heinz Fuchs of EED Tourism Watch highlighted the example of sustainability certification. Small tour operators in Germany have started to take up CSR reporting in tourism. At the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in March 2010, the second batch of tour operators will be awarded the label "CSR-certified". It is based on the strategic decision of the company to integrate CSR into its core business and to introduce a programme for improvement. The benchmark indicators include the degree to which partner agencies, accommodation providers, tourist guides, etc. meet sustainability criteria. T.T. Sreekumar pointed out the difficulties in ensuring that this information was accurate. Even under laboratory conditions, if tour operators were sincere to the core, there would be problems, such as how to collect information from the destinations.

In order to learn from the experiences in other sectors, M.L. Doss of the "Clean Clothes Campaign" in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, was invited to speak about successful campaigning in the textile sector. He stressed the fact that the garment industry is also complex. There are not just buyers and sellers, but there is a chain of contractors, subcontractors, family weavers, etc. It is like a "chain network". The existing labour laws prohibiting child labour are based on employer-employee relationships. However, for most of the workforce, who belong to the informal sector, there are no such relationships. The means that laws remain difficult to implement.

Ways Forward

From the presentations and discussions, it became clear that there is a huge knowledge gap between corporates and the population. T.T. Sreekumar concluded that there is a need for increased transparency. Vinod Krishnan, Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) suggested that civil society organisations should put pressure on their governments to issue guidelines on CSR. It was found that there has to be some self-critical involvement of civil society, also bringing hoteliers to the negotiation table. Heinz Fuchs stressed the need for a long-term, fair partnership between the actors involved. He said the first step to become more responsible was the philosophy behind it. From charity and strategic CSR, it should move on to become so internalised that it successfully integrates social concerns with business aspirations.

Note:

A special TourismWatch issue on CSR was published in December 2009 in preparation for the consultation (see www.tourism-watch.de)

A documentation of the consultation will be available on the organisers' websites in January 2010.

For further information, contact:

KABANI - the other direction, Sruthi, Kottarakunnu P.O., 670 645 Vellamunda, Wayanad, Kerala, India. ph. +91(0)9388402948, email: kabanitour@yahoo.com, www.kabani.org

EED, Tourism Watch, Ulrich-von-Hassell-Str. 76, 53123 Bonn, Germany, ph. +49(0)228/8101-2303, fax +49(0)228/8101-150, email: tourism-watch@eed.de, www.tourism-watch.de

Kerala Tourism Watch, c/o Keraleeyam, Municipal Market Building, Kokkalai, Thrissur-21, Kerala, India, email: contact@keralatourismwatch.org, www.keralatourismwatch.org