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).