Social Responsibility in Tourism and Its Specific Features

This key chapter of the book links social responsibility to the specifics of tourism sustainability and highlights the specificity of social responsibility in tourism in many levels of interpretation. It is a balanced combination of an introduction to the theoretical foundations of social responsibility in tourism, with an emphasis on the basic concepts of its sustainability, an analysis of the environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects of social responsibility, and an overview of formal and informal approaches to social responsibility. The section on the theoretical foundations of social responsibility in tourism is conceived in a meta-informational way and refers to many relevant sources. The explanation is consistently linked to examples from tourism and is complemented by mind maps and analytical diagrams of the approaches described. Attention is paid to codes of ethics and codes of conduct at different geographical levels and for different tourism actors. Among others, approaches according to ISO standards and SA8000, Fair Trade, environmental management, TEQM, participative management, green management are presented and analysed in relation to social responsibility in tourism. Comprehensive analyses are provided on how the various tourism actors can implement these social responsibility approaches.