ORGANIZATION –> Croatia Institute for CSR (IDOP)

APPLY (E-Mail) –> lucija@idop.hr

Start Date –> Ongoing

Duration –> 6 weeks (online / face-to-face)

Remuneration –> Meal Allowance

Tourism represents 17.2% of Croatia’s GDP, so it can and must play a significant role in delivering sustainable solutions. The challenge of this opportunity is to help with creating a framework for integration of SDG principales into the strategy of a Croatian tourism company.

Introduction

Tourism represents 17.2% of Croatia’s GDP, so it can and must play a significant role in delivering sustainable solutions. Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals – Journey to 2030 aims to build knowledge, and empower and inspire tourism stakeholders to take necessary action to accelerate the shift towards a more sustainable tourism sector by aligning policies, business operations and investments with the SDGs. Evidently, if tourism is not well managed including dialog and collaboration with local communities and ways to preserve biodiversity, it can have a negative impact on the whole country.

The Challenge

We identified that most of the challenges within tourism are related to SDGs 11, 12, 13 and 15 on ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’, ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, ‘Climate Action’, and ‘Life on Land’ respectively. The tourism sector is a significant consumer of natural materials and producer of carbon footprint – directly or indirectly through the services of accommodation, transport, and consumption of food. Natural resource management the issue of waste remains a challenge as well – thus affecting the realization of SDGs 12 and 14.

In our case the biggest challenge is the accommodation (hotels) industry (SDG 11, 12, 13 and 15), which generates an estimated 1% of global carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions, and represents approximately 20% of tourism’s overall carbon emissions, mainly through heating, air-conditioning, and the provision of other guest facilities. Furthermore, rich biodiversity and natural heritage are often the main reasons why tourists visit Croatia. Tourism must play a major role if sustainably managed in those fragile zones, not only in conserving and preserving biodiversity, but also in generating revenue as an alternative livelihood to local communities.

Specific Objective for the Trainee

• Conduct stakeholder dialogue and analyze the current SDG compliance state
• Conduct awareness of SDG importance on the relevant market
• Define what are the main problems and provide solutions for raising awareness of SDGs at business level / market level
• Define strategy and plan for SDG integration in the tourism company in Croatia
• Solutions based internship that will help organizations in Croatia to integrate the principles of SDG into their business activities

The trainee will help in creating a framework for integration of SDG principales into the strategy of a Croatiantourism company.

The challenge for the trainee is to help with the preliminary SWOT analysis, recognizing what are the strengths and weaknesses of the industry as well as threats and opportunities. Based on the results of the dialog with relevant stakeholders and preliminary SWOT analysis, trainee will be expected to develop the preliminary PESTEL analysis and suggest methods for improvement. PESTEL analysis provides a vast study of both internal and external factors that pose a challenge to the strategy of an organization.