sustainability-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Certification and Reporting for Sustainable Tourism

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2019) | Viewed by 514

Special Issue Editors

Department of Tourism and Service Management, MODUL University Vienna, Am Kahlenberg 1, 1190 Wien, Austria
Interests: sustainable tourism; climate change; CSR; sustainable consumer behavior
ZENAT Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, Schicklerstraße 5, 16225 Eberswalde, Germany
Interests: sustainable tourism; CSR; climate change; visitor management; tourism in developing countries

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Certification programs and sustainability reporting are often seen as important vehicles to promote the change towards sustainable tourism.

There is a common understanding that certification programs for sustainable tourism should distinguish between genuinely responsible hospitality and tourism business practice and greenwashing. Reporting should be accurate and meaningful. International standards and guidelines have been developed for both certification and reporting, covering not just environmental, but also social and cultural aspects of sustainability as well. However, doubts remain as to what degree these have actually been implemented. Controversial discussions regarding the impacts and usefulness of certification persist. While there are numerous types of sustainable tourism certificates, consumers know hardly anything about them, and the number of certified tourism businesses and destinations remains low.

Thus, certification is not an end in itself.  It is one of a number of tools for motivating businesses to improve their environmental, social, and economic performance. Certification and reporting are mostly voluntary and may involve enormous efforts and associated costs, but also come with a number of potential benefits. These benefits may include improved image and reputation, cost efficiency, employee motivation and satisfaction as well as improved managrment structures and potential for innovation. For consumers and on a B2B level, trustworthy certificates provide orientation and guidance for product selection and supply chain management.

Most of the certifiction programs also require reporting to ensure transparency and information of all stakeholders. In the past few years, sustainability reporting has gained increasing attention in politics, business and science. In 2017 the European Comission made it obligatory for large corporations to release a sustainability report. Whilst on a global scale over 90% of the 250 largest multinational corporations publish such reports (KPMG 2015), this is not yet common practice among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Thus, sustainability reporting remains largely voluntary. Its potential benefits and challenges are similar to the ones connected to certification.

With this special issue we aim to explore future directions in sustainability certification and reporting in hospitality and tourism. We also aim to take into consideration the changing environments (eg. digitalization, globalization,….), stakeholder interests and the need to consider the business case of sustainability reporting. This special issue will provide a forum to discuss and identify new trends and developments in sustainability certification and reporting in the tourism industry.

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Lund-Durlacher
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Stasdas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

References:

The KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2015, https://home.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2015/12/KPMG-survey-of-CR-reporting-2015.pdf

Keywords

We invite researchers to submit original papers that include conceptual, empirical, analytical, or design-oriented approaches: Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • The role of certification and reporting in tourism policy
  • Certification and quality management
  • Certification and innovation
  • Process- versus performance-based certification programs
  • The performance and impacts of certification schemes
  • Benefits and challenges of certified tourism businesses
  • Financing certification programs
  • Certification along the supply chain
  • Sustainability certificates and reports as marketing tools
  • Comparing different certification programs and reporting standards and practices
  • Certification and reporting in the age of digitalization
  • Certifications and reporting standards for different types of tourism businesses, especially SMEs
  • Sustainability reporting and strategic management
  • Case studies

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
Back to TopTop