Tensions

Fresh from the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector is once again put to the test. Gulf monarchies, once hailed as the safest tourist destinations in the world, have in a single day become among the riskiest places.

Caught in a trap, thousands of holidaymakers turn to their travel agencies. Between emergency repatriations, destination changes and refund requests, travel agents and tour-operator teams, the magicians of our holidays, must face immense psychological pressures, and their mental health is undoubtedly affected. A silent deterioration of working conditions for these agents takes hold, exacerbated by the psychological precarity that the sector’s probable collapse could entail, with massive layoffs looming.

The closing of airspaces, navigational difficulties at sea, skyrocketing oil prices and surging insurance premiums have finally redrawn the map of zones accessible to tourists with fewer risks. “Dubai used to account for 70% of my annual turnover. Overnight everything collapsed. Today I spend two-thirds of my time reassuring clients who are blocked or panicked, while the remaining third is spent undoing what I had spent months building. Reprogramming isn’t even on the agenda given the great uncertainties about the end of this conflict in the Middle East. The hardest part for us travel agents is imagining our professional future. It’s truly depressing.” Sabrina, a staff member, portfolio manager for Maghreb and the Middle East at a French tour operator, shares with us.

“We have shifted from dream merchants to firefighters. I used to sell dreams, dream destinations, voyages that changed lives. Now I am on the verge of becoming a psychologist, not knowing what tomorrow holds – how can we continue to sell when we are the ones on the edge of a nervous breakdown?” confides Sandrine, an employee at the same company. In this climate of emotional precarity and operational survival, how can a process aimed at achieving certifications or labels such as Travelife-ISO20121 – 26000-ATR or any other framework be steered?

What challenges lie ahead for the CSR approach, and what levers can the CSR consultant pull?

When a crisis hits in the middle of a certification-support process, the CSR consultant faces the paradox of priorities: urgency versus the standard.

Sabrina has just spent the day coordinating the evacuation of 200 tourists stuck in Abu Dhabi without success. The airport and the region’s airspace are closed. Sandrine has spent the last half hour dealing with the anger of a young married couple whose honeymoon in Dubai has just been cancelled. The two employees are in an extremely tense emotional state. At the same moment, the CSR consultant accompanying their company toward renewing its certification enters the office. The look she exchanges with the two employees convinces her that this is not the right moment to discuss standards*.

* The names have been altered to avoid identifying the individuals concerned

For Agapè, the CSR consultant’s role in such a context is to show empathy, to listen to the management and to the employees, and not to appear as a zealot defender of the standard, adding an extra workload. The consultant has a moral obligation to immerse themselves in the palpable tensions in order to reshape the certification process agenda, reorganize the schedule, and demonstrate that it is ultimately a pedagogy, a guidance toward practices that preserve human beings first, then the planet.

The social dimension is the central pillar of any corporate social responsibility approach, says Cathy Bou, founder and CEO of AGAPÈ.

Lately, we are encountering many cases of psychological pressure and decline in the quality of life and working conditions (QVCT). Our own situation could deteriorate as we encounter sensitive scenarios. Yet, our reading of the frameworks requires us to prioritize the protagonists, to consider sustainability in its entirety (Social, Economic, Environmental). It is certainly common for environmental concerns to take precedence.

The challenge for the consultant in this anxiety-filled climate for company leaders and their employees is to be a buffer between all parties. To succeed in their mission, the consultant must ensure that the management’s order of priorities is reversed. “They must convince the leadership to place health and safety — for themselves, their employees, collaborators and other providers — at the top of the CSR priority stack.” No certification would be credible if it is built on social distress and the collapse of teams. In such a case, the initiative would be nothing more than a “social-washing”.

When the initiative lacks humanity, when the consultant and the management ignore distress, the CSR standard will inevitably be perceived as cynicism by stakeholders, a new checkbox for the management. “We are asked to be eco-responsible certified, to think about carbon footprints or waste management while there are sickness absences, burnouts, fatal accidents during missions — it’s the height of cynicism.”