In a travel industry that is changing faster than ever, businesses need clarity to make confident, forward looking decisions. HBX Group has updated its Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) in 2025 not only to reflect the latest European requirements (CSRD, ESRS and EFRAG guidance), but because understanding which topics truly influence business performance, customer demand and operational resilience is essential for the future of the travel ecosystem.
Why double materiality matters for travel sector?
For partners across the travel and hospitality ecosystem, double materiality is much more than a reporting exercise. It is a strategic tool that provides:
- Insight into the factors shaping customer expectations, operational efficiency, workforce wellbeing, supplychain stability and longterm competitiveness.
- A clearer view of where risks, costs and disruptions may arise—and where real opportunities for innovation and differentiation exist.
- A practical foundation to make decisions that strengthen performance, reputation and resilience.
In a market where travellers, regulators and partners expect greater transparency, responsibility and value, this type of intelligence becomes a competitive advantage.
Double materiality analyses the issues that matter most to a business from two interconnected perspectives:
What is double materiality?
Impact materiality
How an organisation’s activities affect people, communities and the environment—positively or negatively. This includes topics such as employment conditions, community wellbeing, environmental impacts, customer experience, and ethical business conduct.
Financial materiality
How these topics may affect the company’s financial performance—revenues, operating costs, access to markets, investor confidence, brand perception or risk exposure.
When both perspectives are assessed together, they create a holistic view of what truly matters across the value chain.
For the travel industry, applying double materiality means anticipating workforce challenges and talent needs, understanding community and destination expectations, improving guest satisfaction and accessibility, strengthening supply chain reliability, identifying cost-saving opportunities, and responding effectively to regulatory and market shifts. In short, double materiality helps businesses prioritise the issues that influence people, performance, and long-term success.
How HBX Group conducts the assessment
To ensure robust and decision useful results, HBX Group follows a streamlined four step process:
Context analysis:
Reviewing internal information, industry benchmarks, external reports and destinationspecific risks.
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Identification of impacts, risks and opportunities:
Mapping where positive and negative effects occur across the value chain.
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Stakeholder engagement:
Consulting employees, clients, suppliers, partners and experts to validate priorities.
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Evaluation and validation:
Assessing severity, likelihood and financial relevance, with results reviewed by HBX Group governance bodies and integrated into the Enterprise Risk Management framework.
This ensures the DMA directly supports strategic planning, risk management and decision making.
Key outcomes of HBX Group’s 2025 update
To ensure the DMA leads to real action, HBX Group integrates the findings into key business processes in the following ways:
- Guides action plans and monitoring across operations and the value chain, ensuring material topics receive consistent followup.
- Supports investment and product decisions, helping prioritise initiatives that strengthen performance and customer experience.
- Aligns with internal controls and reporting, embedding material topics into governance and daytoday decisionmaking.
- Feeds the Corporate Risk Register, so sustainabilityrelated risks are managed alongside other enterprise risks.
For the current financial year, no financial effects linked to these IROs have been identified, and no significant adjustments are expected. This provides partners with a stable, riskaware framework that supports resilience and longterm value creation.