In a VISION exclusive interview last Friday, Stefanos Fotiou, of the United Nations Environment Programme, said that plans for the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council accreditation agenda are progressing at full steam, the UNEP Green Passport is to be a physical entity and the Climate Change and Tourism seminars are to be rolled out globally.

With over 50 different sustainable tourism certification schemes globally, all with different criteria, the UNEP-backed Sustainable Tourism Criteria Initiative has stepped in to agree a global set of criteria for the industry.

The Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism Criteria which was initiated by Rainforest Alliance, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Foundation, and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

The initiative has an extraordinarily wide level of support from the industry generally. There are some 22 big name industry members on the co-ordinating committee - from Expedia and Sabre through the IUCN to the FTO and the IHRA. The consultation process is now coming to a close with its final stage of fine tuning. The latest version of the criteria �" “Version 5” is to be announced on 6 October at a meeting in Barcelona.

Said Mr Fotiou “This is one of our most important initiatives, there was confusion in the market. The criteria will not be set in stone and to take account of differences in practice, will be revisited every 2 years”.

It is likely that the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council will be spun off as an independent accreditation agency on a partnership arrangement with UNEP and the UN WTO providing technical assistance.

Another UNEP tourism scheme �" the ‘Green Passport’, announced at ITB, has also gained global support. The website is now getting 120,000 unique visitors a month, and plans are now in hand to get physical ‘Green Passports’ printed. It is to be one of South Africa’s main awareness tools in its World Cup ‘Green Goal’ programme. In addition five countries have agreed to mainstream the ‘Green Passport’ agenda �" including Costa Rica, France and Greece.

The first ‘Climate Change and Tourism’ seminar was held at Oxford University in May and plans have now reached the final stages to roll the event out initially in the Mediterranean.

Web resources:

SustainableTourismCriteria

GreenPassport

Valere Tjolle