Lola Herrero, Associate Professor (ESCP Business School) and Jean-Baptiste Say Institute Scientific-Academic Director and Adriana Hurtado, Part-time Research Assistant (ESCP Business School) are part of the team that lead the Professorship RIU Hotels & Resorts CSR.

The ESCP team will be part of the “X Foro Internacional de Turismo Maspalomas Costa Canaria”, an international meeting aimed at researchers, academics, professionals and students to discuss issues affecting the tourism sector. The congress will also serve to promote multidisciplinary collaborative relationships between the tourism and academic fields.

Tourism is considered one of the driving forces behind the development of territories, but its social, environmental and economic impacts are not always positive. For this reason, many hotel chains have begun to define Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that is sometimes governed by subjective criteria, making it difficult to move from strategy to operation. On this regard, the ESCP team will be presenting the RIU Method (Be RIUsponsible), a methodology developed by RIU Hotels & Resorts in collaboration with ESCP Business School to ensure that the starting point of its social investment projects are the realities of the destinations in which it operates.

During the presentation, the background of the RIU Method will be reviewed, from the conceptual framework to the design and implementation process in the destination of Guanacaste (Costa Rica), in order to explain an applied model that is consistent with the company's CSR policies and contributes to the sustainable development of destinations.

After the Congress, the paper will be published in a book that will belong to the famous series of books Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice, published by Emerald (England). Furthermore, the outputs of this amazing joint work done within the framework of the professorship will be also disseminated in two other events:

  • Lola Herrero will present the RIU Method at the round table called "How to effectively address the challenges of social sustainability in tourism", which will be held on October 14th at 9:30 a.m., during the ISTO 2022 World Congress organized by the International Social Tourism Organization.
  • The professor will also explained the RIU Method at the II Congreso Internacional de Turismo de Interior de Andalucía (organised by the University of Jaén and funded by Consejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deporte de la Junta de Andalucía), in the round table "The future of inland tourism: an hour on the road", to be held on October 25 from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm.

Will you join us in these events to know more about the Professorship results?

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