Get Started

This section is all about your value chain and how to assess your risks and impacts. Get started with your process and use our support and tools: 

  • What is the relevance of human rights for my business?
  • How can I make sure that the local population in the destination is not harmed by my operations?
  • How can I guarantee customers’ safety on their trip?
  • Do my business partners provide fair working conditions for their staff?

The «Get started» tool will help you identify human rights risks and integrate measures to protect human rights in your operations and along the value chain. Here you will find practical and concrete answers and hands-on recommendations to your questions. The amount of potential human rights risks and impacts of a business can be overwhelming. This tool especially helps small or medium-sized tour operators to address questions and challenges such as:

  • Where to start?
  • How to identify relevant risks?
  • How to set priorities?
  • How to interpret information?
  • What steps can be taken to mitigate those risks?

Start now:

The «get started» tool is a practice-oriented response to the needs of small and medium-sized tour operators to consistently recognise human rights risks and systematically take measures to respect human rights as part of their business activities.

It refers to the fields of action provided by the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism for tour operators on the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Based on a value chain risk analysis, the tool provides easy access to companies to identify their business-related human rights risks. For areas where salient human rights risks have been identified, companies should conduct a more in-depth human rights impact assessment (HRIA). Moreover, the tool offers concrete guidance and recommendations on actions to take to address the impacts identified.

The information and data provided in the tool is based on publicly accessible human rights information platforms, databases, case studies or media articles, provided by UN agencies, civil society organisations, business companies, and media.

The tool does not provide a fully-fledged human rights risk and impact assessment for tour operators. It is a pragmatic response to the needs of small and medium-sized tour operators to consistently recognize human rights risks and systematically take measures to respect human rights as part of their business activities.

There is no «quick-fix» for companies wishing to address human rights issues in their business operations. All processes take time and require company (human) resources and commitment.

The «get started» tool mainly addresses small and medium sized outbound tour operators and tourism companies. The tool helps organizations that have not yet developed comprehensive human rights due diligence strategies to «get started».

The tool has been developed for people from travel and tourism businesses who are responsible for introducing a company-specific human rights approach. It starts by guiding users to identify salient human rights issues (Analyse risks), to conduct a more in-depth human rights impact assessment (Assess impacts) and to define further appropriate measures (Take action) to mitigate the identified risks.

How to use this tool?

Learn how to analyse your risks in the value chain by following the step-by-step guide in the slide show below. The Destination Risk Map shows you country-specific risks. The HRIA tool then supports you to integrate appropriate measures to mitigate the identified risks.

For more guidance, follow two fictitious small- and medium-sized tour operators on their way through the «get started» tool and learn about their reflections and considerations.

Reisen aktiv offers activity holidays on the Mediterranean coast and Sri Lanka adventures provides personalised culture and nature tours in Sri Lanka.

The development of the Get Started Tool was conducted by focusright and funded by the German Government via the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.