Assess impacts

• Identify the most relevant countries for your business based on passenger volume (PAX).

• Get an overview of how many of your customers have travelled to the selected countries in the last 3 years.

• Which of the countries listed are strategically more important for your company for other reasons than passenger volumes (e.g. historic relationships of your company with the country ("flagship country"), expected growth market, recent/expected political changes, other reasons)?

• Rate your relationship with local partners (usually incoming agents) in each country from high (strong relationship/own incoming agent) to low (loose network of ad-hoc partners).

Enter a name based on the products offered in your catalogue or on your company website.

• The supplier types are defined in the "get started" tool.
• Contact relevant colleagues in your organisation if you need help mapping your value chain.

• Include at least two contact details of business partners for each supplier type as listed in the previous step (if possible).

• Check the guidance document provided for instructions "Which people and units in your company should be involved in the assessment?".

• Study the table below to understand which potential human rights issues might appear for each of the selected products, including their value chains.
• Click on the links of the human rights risks to get more information about the potential issues in the "get started" tool.

• Use the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism as a starting point to identify relevant stakeholders who could provide you with more information on the human rights issues identified. Check the provided template for stakeholder mapping to identify further stakeholders.
• Select at least two stakeholders for each human rights issue identified and with knowledge of the human rights context in the chosen destination.
• Try to include different types of stakeholders (e.g. international organisations (IO), local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society actors).
• Try to find stakeholders who have specific expertise in the selected destinations (e.g. on Phuket) or on the products in scope (e.g. on "cultural tourism").
• If you're struggling to find relevant local stakeholders, contact your network (e.g. the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism) and/or international stakeholders to help you find local experts. (Or check the provided template list of relevant international stakeholders assigned to specific human rights issues to identify other relevant stakeholders.)

• Some of the stakeholders you might want to contact prior to the on-site assessment to support your desk research in the next step and/or to receive contact details of other relevant stakeholders on the ground.

• List the information gathered during your desk research using the template for desk research provided. This template helps you to have a structured approach to your desk research.
• Try to find publicly available information (destination- or product-specific, if possible) related to all potential human rights issues identified in the previous step of "Identification of potential human rights issues". Have there been any media reports, studies or activities on specific human rights-related topics in the destinations?
• Find the relevant regulatory framework in the country selected for the assessment.
• If you are struggling to find relevant information, contact the experts identified in the previous step "Stakeholder mapping".

Check the guidance document on "How to select and prioritise your stakeholders?" for further support.

• Make sure a broad range of stakeholder types are consulted, check the previous step "Stakeholder mapping".
• Find a good balance between business partners, NGOs, and other stakeholder groups.
• Make sure to consult at least two stakeholders per identified issue.
• Pay special attention to vulnerable rights-holder and/or legitimate representatives, including NGOs and civil society actors, as well as workers’ representatives. Check the guidance document provided for further instructions on "Who are legitimate representatives?".
• Consider the availability and accessibility of selected stakeholders when planning and conducting your interviews.

• The assessment team has relevant inter-disciplinary skills and expertise in the given context, and is culturally and gender-sensitive.
• The assessment team has enough time, management support and other resources necessary to effectively conduct an on-site assessment.
• Check the guidance document provided for instructions on "What are the criteria for selecting the assessment team?".

• Use the template for an on-site schedule to establish your detailed schedule.
• Determine the time required for each consultation.
• When planning the assessment make sure you allocate enough time for a daily debriefing with the assessment team and to summarize the information collected.
• Organize the logistics, including travel, accommodation, venues, etc.
• A great extent of flexibility on the ground is needed in order to react spontaneously to changes in the timetable and to take up new interview opportunities that arise.
• Organize a kick-off event with your local team/main partner (e.g. incoming agent) to present your on-site schedule.
• Organize a closing event to present the first results to your local team. Decide if you also want to invite rights-holders and relevant stakeholders.

• The HRIA tool provides you with a template questionnaire general as well as three templates of stakeholder-specific questionnaires for workers, management as well as NGOs and community members to support your preparation for consultations.
• See also the next step "Conducting consultations" for further information on how to prepare your consultations.

• The guidance document on "What should be considered when preparing for consultations?" provides you with important information to bear in mind when preparing consultations with different stakeholders.

• Create a business card with a trustable contact which can be distributed to all interviewees if they wish to get in touch after the consultation without fearing repercussions.

• Choose between individual interviews and focus group discussions (e.g. with religious organisations, NGOs, indigenous groups etc.).
• The two guidance documents on "How to conduct an individual interview?" and "How to conduct focus group discussions?" provide you with important information on how to prepare and conduct different types of interviews.
• Limit the number of participants in focus group interviews to a maximum of 10.
• See also the guidance materials in the previous step "Preparation of consultations" for further information.

• Consider time for transportation between different interview locations.
• See also the guidance material in the previous step "Assessment team & on-site schedule".

• Use the template provided to summarize the interviews.

• Explain the objectives of the assessment, how the information will be used, and what type of material will be produced with the information. See also "Preparation of consultations" in Phase 3 for further information.

• Find more information in the guidance materials on "What needs to be considered for gender-sensitive consulting?" and "What needs to be considered during consultations in conflict-sensitive situations?".

• Check the guidance material for more information on "What needs to be considered when consulting vulnerable groups?". 
• The tool provides you with further instructions to consider when consulting specific stakeholders such as children, workers and local communities.

• Arrange the seating in a circle or around a table where everyone can have eye contact.
• Mix the members of the assessment team with the people being interviewed when choosing the seating arrangement.

• Cluster the information gathered in the interviews according to human rights issues as described in the guidance document on "How to code the findings?" and collect the relevant data in the template coding table provided. Differentiate between positive and negative impacts.
• Identify conflicting facts and information gaps. Conduct additional desk research or consultations if needed.
• List additional issues raised by the stakeholders consulted that go beyond the predefined human rights issues.
• Discard data that is not relevant.

• Study the coded findings, identify possible explanations (root causes) and preliminary conclusions. Discuss and validate them with the assessment team and other relevant stakeholders if appropriate.
• List the main issue areas and (potentially) affected rights-holders.
• Prioritise the identified human rights issue areas according to the severity of their impact on people. Check the guidance material on "How to prioritise human rights issues according to severity?".

• For each impact area identified, evaluate your ability to influence the situation on the ground. This will help you identify follow-up measures in a second step.
• Use the concept of 'leverage' as described in the guidance document on "How to identify leverage?".

• Start with the most severe issues you have prioritized already to identify follow-up measures. Use the guidance material on "How to prioritise human rights issues according to severity?" if you need help in knowing where to start.
• There may be issues you can influence directly (or where your leverage is high) and where you can take action as a company alone.
• For areas where your ability to influence is limited, find (local) partners to collaborate with. Check if people contacted throughout the assessment might be interested in collaborating on specific topics.
• For each impact area list the measures identified in the template action plan provided. Get inspired by the "take action" section of the "get started" tool to find ideas of potential measures you can take.
• To support the steps above and to gain a better overview on the severity of the human rights issues identified, and your ability to influence ('leverage') them, use the guidance on "How to identify follow-up measures?" to create a matrix accordingly.

• Based on the list of measures created above, and discussions with potential partners, create a comprehensive action plan to address each of the issue areas identified. Use the template action plan to gather the identified measures. Check the guidance material on "How to establish indicators for the monitoring?".
• Include actions you can integrate and mainstream in your business processes (e.g. sourcing policy) as well as follow-up measures in the respective country or destination.
• Add clear timelines, targets, indicators and responsibilities for the implementation of the action plan.
• Continuously monitor the implementation of the action plan and consult with local stakeholders where relevant.

• Write an executive briefing of your findings for internal use. Use the guidance material on "How to write an assessment report?" to get helpful information and enter the data in the template action plan provided.
• Review your report with a group of relevant internal and external stakeholders.

• Translate the report into local languages and provide non-technical summaries.
• Publish the findings of the assessment report on your company’s website.
• Disseminate your report to relevant business partners, other companies in the same sector operating in the region and civil society actors.
• Use the guidance document to get helpful information on "How to communicate your findings?".