Social Return on Investment (SROI) in the Tourism Sector
Discover a holistic approach to evaluating the social impacts of tourism activities to identify investment opportunities, track performance and show positive social change.
Being aware of the social impact of activities can help tourism organizations ensure the sustainability of their activities and wellbeing of their communities. But tourism is a complex sector, connected with many others, involving multiple stakeholders—so it can be challenging to conduct a comprehensive assessment of such activities.
Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis offers a new way of doing this, enabling destination developers to understand, engage and measure the success of communities.
Generally, SROI analysis is used to show the social impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts by assessing the blended return of investments in social or community ventures.
In the context of tourism, this kind of holistic approach can capture and assess the multi-dimensional impacts of activities on various stakeholders, environments and communities.
But SROI is more than a measure. It can provide a long-term perspective, support stakeholder engagement, inform investment decisions by identifying opportunities with the greatest social impact—and ultimately help build resilience and adaptability in the tourism sector.
The Practice of Social Return on Investment in the Tourism Sector Report
For a comprehensive overview of the methodologies and best practices for measuring the social impact of tourism initiatives using SROI, explore our report “The Practice of Social Return on Investment in the Tourism Sector.”
The report includes:
- Case studies illustrating the application of SROI practices
- Stakeholders to engage before establishing SROI performance measures and metrics
- Environmental scan of SROI methodologies
- Examples of relevant SROI metrics currently being used
- Lessons learned from implementing SROI in the tourism sector