Summary: HRIA Workshop 22. October

On 22 October 2019, the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism gathered 24 tourism-related stakeholders in a workshop "How can tour operators assess human rights impacts in their value chains?" in Berlin.

Roundtable members and other interested stakeholders from tourism associations, tour operators, civil society, academia, tourism certification learned about the new, practice-oriented Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) tool developed by the Roundtable and provided feedback. The tool will be integrated in the Roundtables’ get started tool for SME tour operators and is publicly available on the Roundtable’s website.

Participants discussed the preliminary findings from the HRIAs that have been conducted in Thailand and Myanmar by the Roundtable in September 2019, learned about the methodology and challenges to plan a HRIA and worked on potential follow-up measures that tour operators and other actors in the tourism industry could take.

The next steps in the project will be:

• As the HRIA tool is now available online, feedback on the content is very welcome and can be sent to info [at] humanrights-in-tourism [dot] net (info[at]humanrights-in-tourism[dot]net).
• Based on the on-site consultations in Myanmar and Thailand as well as on the outcomes of the kick-off workshop in Bangkok (September 6th), the closing workshop in Yangon (September 17th) and the follow-up workshop in Berlin (October 22nd), an action plan with potential follow-up measures and responsibilities is currently being developed in collaboration with Roundtable members and will be integral part of the HRIA report to be published in spring 2020.
• The results will be disseminated and discussed by Roundtable members (e.g. tourism associations, RT representatives, NGOs etc.) and their channels (e.g. newsletters, webinars, workshops, trainings etc.). This includes events planned for 2020 such as a public discussion at ITB Berlin (4 March 2020), the Roundtable Symposium (25-26 June 2020) etc. The Roundtable is also exploring how the results can be made available to relevant stakeholders in Thailand and Myanmar through local partners. Any ideas and suggestions in this regard are welcome.