First two RIU International Consulting Projects concluded!

Within the framework of the Professorship RIU HOTELS & RESORTS: ESCP Business School (Madrid Campus) as Academic Partner for CSR,  planned to develop four International Consulting Projects (ICPs) with ESCP Madrid campus MSc Programme student teams during 2022. These projects are centered around sustainability in value chains, CSR in Spanish hotel companies, CSR communications and return of social investment. And we are very happy to share with you that the first two projects have already concluded… with great results!   

Indeed two teams from the MSc in Hospitality & Tourism Management have been working for RIU from March, 20th until April, 29th 2022. In this respect, Melina Toscani, Agathe Ranc, Rayhane Faouzi and Nathan Simeau have mapped and analyze the CSR areas of Spanish hotel companies, with special attention to RIU CSR area, in order to identify the company strengths, weaknesses and opportunities in terms of CSR development and communication inside and outside the company and make some proposals of improvement. They have also incorporated a proposal to foster corporate voluntarism between RIU employees. On the other hand, Bernardo Montes de Oca, Alessandro Negri, Pietro Nastasi and Antoine Reichlin-Meldegg have studied the hotel value chains to establish some criteria to be more sustainable in purchasing; i.e. how to avoid single-use plastics, how to foster the sustainable mobility, how to work with local food suppliers to enhance the local cuisine in buffets, etc.

 
It’s been such an adventure, especially because the students went to RIU headquarters in Mallorca and stayed in a RIU hotel to spend an intense and busy week doing interviews with RIU workers and stakeholders, gathering as much information as possible and testing the proposals with RIU CSR managers. In this context, a lot of links and contacts were made and a direct communication between the company and the students was established, which has allowed them to result in very comprehensive analysis and proposals that were formally presented to top managers on the last day of the experience. The company has marveled at their findings and they have ensured that they will immediately incorporate the results in their soon coming reports! What a wonderful way of concluding a project for a student! 

Some of their conclusions will be the basis for the following two ICPs, which will be focused on CSR communications and indicators for measuring the impact of social investment. We are looking forward to starting these new projects that will take place during May and June and that will involve students from Marketing and Digital Media and the MBA In International Management. Stay tuned!

ICP Testimonial : CSR areas of Spanish hotel companies
ICP Testimonial : Hotel value chains