Eco-Tourism labels

Just like everyone else, the tourism industry tries to label their products (mostly for marketing purposes), which has given rise to a slew of eco-tourism labels.

As with anything - labels don't mean all that much if no one cares or pays attention to them. They become even more meaningless if no one can understand them.

Of course, trying to provide a meaning and understanding for these labels is the sticky part, mostly because different companies - countries - organizations, adhere to their own standards of environmental beliefs and ideas. This makes it really hard to know who to support and believe in.

When I first started in the travel business (long, long ago in 2007, ha ha ha). I was taking a certification class by the Adventure Travel Council (the travel industry is big on certification) and across my path blew Sustainable Travel International.

STI gave me a kind of standard I looked at when evaluating a potential supplier. Though not every supplier I use is a member (sometimes memberships and certifications can be cost prohibitive to small operations with great programs) they offer guidelines to at least consider and ask questions about.

STI has recently teamed up with Green Globe (which has it's own programs and certifications), and are going to make a tag team effort. This may have some sway on setting overall sustainability standards - making the labels, make sense (unfortunately, it probably won't make certification/membership costs go down).

Green Travel

I work in the travel and tourism industry . . . and everything about it screams go green!

The #1 reason a person travels is for the destination!  

People do travel for other reasons like work or family obligations, but most travel because they have heard about, read about or dreamed about a particular destination.

So, preserving destinations is one of the most important aspects of the travel industry.  If destinations disappear so does their economic potential, which hurts every part of the industry. So not only is it good for business to become sustainable, it is a necessity.

Tour operators (suppliers) sell a destination as their product, and many have realized that the upkeep and protection of these places is valuable, not only to their longevity, but to their personal value, since the destinations are often seen as representative of their company.  So, it is in their best interest to practice sustainability.

Travel Agents (resellers) must look to these suppliers (tour operators) to lead the way by selling products that are environmentally and socially sustainable.

Of course, there is a lot still to be done.

Hydrogen Cars

In 2004, while I was in Barcelona, I had a chance to attend an event called Forum (Universal Forum of Cultures).  It was a sort of cultural, environmental and economic fair.

It had some fantastic exihibits about environmental waste, water use and depletion of resources, as well as some great new concepts on how to fix things.

But one of the coolest exhibits was by Toyota, where they had on display concept cars using Hydrogen.

Some pictures of the cars:

Sporty and fun, but not a lot of luggage space!

Room for one. A bit scary on the highway!