From 11th November to 15th December 2020, various hotels and accommodation establishments of the Tourism Sector of Kazakhstan received a course about sustainability management. The sustainability course consisted of 6 weekly online sessions, in which sustainability management principles and characteristics were addressed.
During this 6-week programme, several points of sustainable management in hotels were discussed:
- Relation of sustainable tourism to corporate social responsibility.
- Environmental-management-key-theme presentation (energy, waste, waste, pollution, etc.) and tips to reduce their consumption.
- Importance of social sustainability in terms of labour standards, human rights, relation with local community, etc.).
- The key rules of the sustainability marketing: benefit explanation, story communication, sincerity and honesty.
- The problems of greenwashing communication.
- The Global Sustainable Tourism Council´s Criteria to give guidance in sustainability.
Moreover, Travelife sustainability certification system and its 6-step approach to sustainability management were addressed:
- Stage: Engaging your business by appointing sustainability coordinator and other key roles.
- Stage: Conduct a baseline assessment and identify the operations of the company and supply chain components.
- Stage: Development of corporate responsibility and sustainability policy.
- Stage: Implementation of an action plan. In addition, Travelife action planning tool was shown and explained.
- Stage: Monitoring and evaluation of achievements and assessment.
- Stage: Reporting the results and continuous improvement.
