Posts tagged with responsible tourism

Successful participation of NaturCert at ITB Asia 2009

October 25th, 2009

NaturCert’s participation to ITB Asia 2009 has been marked with great success and expanded development opportunities for the Asian region.

The 2nd ITB Asia closed in Singapore with 6,149 attendees joining the three-day event. A large number of countries where represented at the event mainly focused on the South East Asian region.

Akis Laopodis, Managing Partner of NaturCert said: ”We have seen great interested for NaturCert Certification from hospitality & travel chains and groups based in the region as well as international brands present in Asia. With the upcoming announcement of our Representation in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia we will be able to fully expand our market presence in the region with sustainable growth of our activities for addressing the demand for our programs. It is important to mention that NaturCert Certification is today in fully compliance with the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC) developed by key UN agencies and over 30 international organizations. It is the key point of reference for sustainable tourism certification and the only globally accepted.”

NaturCert did also a presentation of its activities at the responsible tourism networking event on 22 October. The objective or the event was to share experiences and strengthen contacts and business opportunities between environmentally and socially responsible travel operators and companies active in the field of sustainable tourism in the region.

The event was a continuation of the responsible tourism networking event supported by Messe Berlin during ITB Berlin in March and at the South Asia Travel and Tourism Exchange (SATTE) in New Delhi in April. The responsible travel event at ITB Asia was co-organised by The Blue Yonder, TravelToCare and Wild Asia.

ITB Asia has also worked with responsible operators to create the Responsible Tourism Centre at ITB Asia. The centre was an 18 square metre booth on the ITB Asia show floor made from recycled and reusable material walls, carpets and signage boards. The centre was manned by experienced representatives from groups and associations dealing with responsible tourism in Asia and representatives of companies active in the field.

About NaturCert

Local Sustainability. International Recognition. NaturCert develops international sustainability criteria and programs, allowing travel & tourism organizations to operate responsibly and achieve international recognition as green & sustainable. Further to that, NaturCert introduces international and local initiatives promoting sustainability and environmentally responsible as well as corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices.’

NaturCert operates through the international network of NaturCert Representative Offices and subsidiaries. Each network member is a separate and independent legal entity and operates locally in countries around the world. Today NaturCert is present in 7 countries: Algeria, Austria, Brazil, Germany, Greece, Libya, Tunisia. All contact details can be found at the Contact page of NaturCert’s website.

Contact Information

NaturCert E.E.
Akis Laopodis
0030 213 03 09 023
pr@naturcert.com
www.naturcert.com

Responsible Tourism: only for developing countries

July 6th, 2009

According to wikipedia, Responsible Tourism is tourism ‘that creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit’.

Going through various responsible tourism websites and resources one can think that responsible tourism is a concept developed only for destinations in developing countries. You will possibly find a lot on Kerala, India due to its state-wide commitment to responsible tourism, on Sri Lanka, Belize, South Africa and a number of other developing nations.

But this is not all.

Responsible tourism may make more sense for rural populations and local communities in developing countries given the direct and indirect impact of tourism on them.

But if we look at the numbers, more than half of the world’s international arrivals take place in wealthy nations. The 924 Million international arrivals of 2008 (UNWTO) will grow to 1 Billion by 2010 according to EEA’s projections. 450 million arrivals will take place in all of Europe and 100 million arrivals will take place in USA & Canada.

By summing up the amounts we realize that  55% of the projected international tourism arrivals by 2010 will be hosted by more or less wealthy nations. See the graph below:

International tourism arrivals graph

According to Google Trends the term Responsible Tourism was not searched enough before the end of 2006 thus Google is not able to present any statistics about it.

Responsible tourism by Google Trends
Responsible tourism by Google Trends

It seems, the exposure of responsible tourism and the participation of larger numbers of professionals, students, academics and also travelers, came with a certain delay in comparison with the overall e-tourism trend.

Responsible Travel, the most popular responsible travel portal today in the market, launched the Responsible Tourism Awards in 2004 in collaboration with Virgin Holidays. The 2008 winners where equally balanced between wealthy and developing countries with various types of awards .

Overall New Zealand was the big winner which has taken a considerable step towards the implementation of a real and tangible responsible tourism strategy for the country.

Source: www.naturcert.com/plus/