• Tourism

Tourism

This paper argues that the effective integration of responsible environmental, social and economic practices and principles into the day-to-day operations of a tourism enterprise requires the development of a sustainability performance management system (SPMS). SPMS allows an enterprise to:

• ensure that all impacts and areas of responsibility are properly addressed
• all actions are measured, monitored, reported on and adapted wherever possible
• ensure that all relevant subjects in the enterprise as well as key outside stakeholders are appropriately involved in the process

SPMS has six relevant elements or implementation phases:

• identify and analyse both positive and negative impacts of tourism enterprise business activity on the environment, socio-cultural outlook and economic development
• formulate an enterprise sustainability performance policy and/or strategy
• develop a sustainability performance programme
• operationalise the sustainability performance programme
• monitor and audit the sustainability performance programme
• report on results of the accomplished sustainability performance programme

An effective SPMS should be:

• comprehensive - system for SPMS can address all impacts and areas of responsibility
• integrated - involvement of all key internal stakeholders in the enterprise and facilitating constructive partnerships with other relevant external stakeholders (different levels of government, non-government organisations, other subjects of civil society and local communities)
• credible - all actions are measured, monitored, reported on and adapted wherever possible

Achieving sustainable tourism is a continuous process of balancing the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development to guarantee long-term sustainability and SPMS can promote continuous improvement in the sustainability performance of tourism enterprises.

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