Les Roches Marbella International School of Hotel Management

There is a worldwide consensus that sustainability is the main basis for the recovery of tourism. In this context, tools and standards play an important role to facilitate the integration of the principles of sustainable tourism in practice. Within the tourism sector, the hotel industry is one of the key industries with a high growth rate. The main objective is to carry out an analysis based on the concept of sustainability in the sustainability certifications of the hotel industry, delving into those certifications adopted by the large hotel companies. For this purpose, a comparative analysis of the certification criteria is carried out using as a basis the World Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). This article evidences the primacy of the environmental dimension and establishes recommendations that guide holistic and integrated sustainability strategies from a comprehensive perspective that allow the recovery of tourism in general and the sustainable hotel industry in particular.

Abstract Since its burst in early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has deeply affected every aspect of daily life, from international trade and travelling to restrictions on an individual level, becoming a complex multi-level and highly multi-faceted problem. Due to its overarching influence and deep impact, it can be seen as one of the most disruptive Grand Challenges of our time. Different from most other lasting Grand Challenges, such as Climate Change, the pandemic exerted its influence with little ramp-up, rapidly transforming health and health systems, human lives, goods and economic flows, decision-making mechanisms, research and innovation, and many other aspects of life in a very short span of time.Grand Challenges require extraordinary efforts from society as a whole since they need holistic, effective, collaborative endeavours to solve them. One such unique orchestrated effort can be observed in the subsequent series of virtual massive EUvsVirus (https://www.euvsvirus.org/) events and committed collaborations (‘hackathon’, ‘matchathon’, ‘launchathon’, ‘community’, ‘EIC Covid platform’, and the unparalleled ‘Academia Diffusion Experiment’ [ADE], analysed in chapter “Academia Diffusion Experiment: Trailblazing the Emergence from Co-Creation” of this book).While this chapter explains ‘what’ has been produced with the ADE, inspired by the EUvsVirus phenomenon, the ADE chapter describes ‘how’ it has been done. Both are extremely unique in terms of content, procedure, motivation, collaboration, effects—and they attempt to trailblaze at highest level co-creation, co-evolution, and co-dreaming. Hence, situated as the last chapters of this book.This chapter will shed light on the EUvsVirus events, where over 30,000 individuals from 40 countries came together and addressed the complexity of this massive challenge in a pioneering and groundbreaking way. The chapter is focused on analysing the EUvsVirus hackathon (alongside its mentioned unique spillovers) as a tool, method, and process capable of channelling and activating individuals’ and institutions’ concerns, wills, and commitments into a unique orchestrated open, collaborative response to an urgent Grand Challenge, the pandemic. We are producing a multi-vortex tornado model, resembling the EUvsVirus phenomenon, its components, mechanisms, behaviour and how to replicate it to achieve such disruptive, global organisational effort of co-creation. Especially, the emergence of such collaboration in the face of such urgency leads to the assumption that there are crucial lessons to be learned from this endeavour, quite fittingly encapsulated by these words:‘We are learningThat though we weren't ready for this,We have been readied by it’.Amanda Gorman’s New Year poem (https://amandagormanbooks.com/#the-hill-we-climb-and-other-poems or https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/01/06/exp-amanda-gorman-nye-poem.cnn)

Inspired by EUvsVirus, this chapter focuses on the Academia Diffusion Experiment (ADE) with more than 40 scholars and practitioners around the globe, who transform practice into science through co-creating, co-evolving, and co-dreaming. The chapter first introduces EUvsVirus as the context of the ADE and then uncovers the Denica 2.0 managerial method deployed to facilitate it, its primary constituents, governing principles, participants, information, and risk management. Finally, the chapter reflects the learnings from the ADE by discussing its potentials, problems, and challenges.