What is CST all about?
It is a program that seeks to categorize and certify each
tourism company according to the degree to which its
operations comply to a model of sustainability. To this
effect, four fundamental aspects are evaluated:
1. Physical-biological parameters
Evaluates the interaction between the company and its
surrounding natural habitat.
2. Infrastructure and services (Exlusive for Lodging
Companies)
Evaluates the management policies and the operational
systems within the company and its infrastructure, regarding
the energy saving, water polluting and waste handling
policies and technology.
2. Service Management (Exclusive for Tour Operator Agencies)
Comprises the process by means of which, the company
considering all the elements internal and external, and
designs a turistic product in accordance with the trends of
the market and the proper characteristics of the country and
places in where goes to operate.
3. External Client
Evaluates the interaction of the company with its clients in
terms of how much it allows and invites the client to be an
active contributor to the company's policies of
sustainability.
4. Socio-economic environment
Evaluates the identification and interaction of the
establishment with the adjacent communities, analysing for
example, the degree in that the tourist companies answer to
the growth and development of the region, with the
generation of new employment or the achievement of benefits
in pro of the collectivity.
How it works?
For each and every one of these items a list of specific
questions was designed to help evaluate how thoroughly the
firm complies with a series of standards previously
established.
Each and every one of the questions refers to an element of
sustainability with which the firm should comply in order to
qualify in any one of the different stages or levels of
fulfillment.
Levels
To measure and fix these different levels, the CST program
provides a system of "sustainability levels"", on a scale of
0 to 5, in which each number indicates the relative position
of the firm in terms of sustainability.
What does it mean for the Tourist Companies to be
categorized by the CST?
If the first level of a category is achieved (level 1), it
means that the company has taken the first step on the
process of sustainability. The higher levels correspond to
stages that are each one more advanced than the previous
one,
