|  Ökologischer Tourismus in Europa (Ö.T.E.) e.V.  |  www.oete.de  |   29.03.2024 - 12:19:am


Code of Conduct

The direct interrelation between tourism and increase of child prostitution in the destination countries has become an alerting topic during the last decades. This relation has been documented by scientific studies in the Philippines, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Thailand and research results were presented in 1990 at a meeting of the Ecumenical Coalition in Third World Tourism (ECTWT, today ECOT) in Chiang Mai/ Thailand.

As a consequence, the campaign ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) has been founded. ECPAT aims to raise the awareness of the issue and appeals to the responsibility of the travellers and of the tourism industry. The work of ECPAT is based on the maxim that every child has the right to be protected against all forms of commercial exploitation and sexual abuse.

The code of conduct for the protection of children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism, often abbreviated Code of Conduct - CC is one of the outcomes of the World Congress against Commercial Exploitation of Children, organised by ECPAT in 1996 in Stockholm (Sweden). The CC is a contribution of the tourism industry, based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. ECPAT lobbies for the identification of reasons for noncompliance, its prosecution and supports rehabilitation programmes for affected children.

Further information: www.thecode.org

Global Code of Ethics

Thanks to emerging discussions on social aspects of tourism within the NGO community, the tourism industry - especially the World Tourism Organsation (WTO, today UNWTO) - has become alert of the negative impacts of tourism.

In the Manila Declaration on the Social Impact of Tourism of 1997, top representatives of governments and the tourism industry committed themselves to the establishment of a Global Code of Ethics for Tourism. The code was adopted by the general assembly of the WTO in 1999, followed by the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly in 2001. It consists of ten principles that deal with the relevance and responsibility of world wide tourism concerning sustainable development. To promote the code of ethics and to monitor its implementation the World Committee for Tourism Ethics has been set up by the UNWTO.

Further information: www.unwto.org/ethics

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

By participating in the process of „Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)“, companies and organisations commit to the voluntary implementation of social and ecological standards that exceed the requirements of the law. So far, mainly european based companies established CSR management as part of their corporate philosophy and also tourism businesses are engaging in this process.

The certification 'CSR Tourism' is granted by the initiative TourCert from Stuttgart to tour operators, tourism agencies and accomodations that implement CSR management successfully.

Further information:

Corporate Social Responsibility: http://www.csr-in-deutschland.de/ueber-csr.html

TourCert: http://www.tourcert.org/index.php?id=tourcert&L=thpmudjgwrwjuzpl