The auditing is a stage where only the evaluation takes place and it is developed by specially trained auditors in Tourism Certification. The working program will be delivered to the responsible of the applicant company at least four weeks in advance, so visits, interviews and data could be picked up, as well as meetings with people’s organizations, tourists and others.

1. The first part  is called Auditing Initiation, where auditing issues are defined and a preliminary revisión of information takes place. It will be defined the extesion and limits, in terms of location of the applicant and the aspects that will be evaluated. For the preliminary revisión of information auditors may evaluate all the prleiminary documents of the applicant company. If the information is not approriate, auditors will inform the applicant company.

2. The second part is the Auditing Preparation and Development, where an opening meeting, a collection and assessment of findings and a closing meeting take place. It includes the visit of installations of the applicant company, assessment of social and environmental aspects, environmental and social policies of the company and compliance  with the national legislation.

The opening meeting considers: i) Introducing the auditors team, ii) reviewing the issues to be evaluated, the auditing plan and the schedule to do so, iii) Presentation of auditing methods, iv) identification of official representatives of the auditors team and the applicant company, v) confirmation of resources and installations for auditors, vi) requesting of data and papers, vii) reviewing emergency and security of the auditing place, and viii) confirming the date and hour that the auditing closes.

The collection of findings includes: i) Collecting enough evidence that the compliance of standards meet the auditing criteria, ii) collecting evidence, as interviews, declarations, visits and papers, iii) registering non complying findings, iv) verifying information with other sources, and v) identifying non verified information as such.

The assessment of findings include: i) reviewing all the evidence and determining all non complying standards, ii) making sure that non complying findings are documented or supported by evidence, and iii) findings should be reviewed by the applicant company’s responsible to obtaing his/her acknoledgement in all non complying findings.

Finally, the closing meeting takes place and this meeting considers: i) the representative or manager is present in the meeting, ii) presenting the findings and their supporting evidence, iii) issues in disagreement should be discussed before delivering the report, and iv) the final decisión is made by the auditors team leader, even thought, the applicant company may disagree. After the closing meeting ends an Auditing Report must be prepared.