The UK’s highly successful Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) has gone international with the launch of the first Green Tourism businesses outside the European Union on the island of Jersey.
This is a significant step for Green Tourism, since its development with VisitScotland in 1997 it has gone from strength to strength and is the first eco-label in the world to have been validated by the International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT) and the only sustainable tourism label endorsed by VisitBritain in the UK.
“It is those credible accreditation schemes that have a global view while remaining cost effective for all sizes of businesses that will be successful and the GTBS is an excellent example of this.†says Dr Xavier Font, ICRT
VisitBritain is the first National Tourism Agency in the world to develop a validation process for green accreditation and has set a standard based on internationally recognised criteria to ensure that the certification scheme is credible.
More than 1600 businesses have already joined GTBS making it the largest certification scheme of its kind in the world and through the VisitBritain validation process undertaken by the ICRT it has been recognised as a credible eco-label offering first class environmental advice and auditing services.
Jason Freezer from VisitBritain says “VisitBritain is committed to encouraging sustainable businesses and is pleased to add its endorsement to businesses within the Green Tourism Business Scheme, giving their quality assessed participants full marketing benefits, both online and offline.â€
Following this validation this Green Tourism expertise is now being made available to destinations around the world that would like find out more about this successful, tried and tested model. New Zealand has already benefited from working with Green Tourism.
“Working with the Green Tourism Business Scheme has gained us further insight into what ‘responsible tourism’ really is. We’ve also focused on learning how tourism operators can benefit from introducing business practices that have both environmental and economic benefits.†says Qualmark chief executive officer, Geoff Penrose
The Green Tourism team has over ten years of experience of delivering sustainable tourism in practice and has significant expertise on how to support all sizes and types of operators using a practical and straight forward framework. Current Green Tourism businesses can demonstrate significant savings, carbon reductions and increased marketing benefits through the Green Tourism process.
“We are happy to talk to any destinations about developing green grading or how to engage their tourism businesses in sustainability. By providing this opportunity we hope that the success of the model will benefit tourism globally and provide an effective, easily accessible and affordable option for destinations wishing to develop Green Tourism products.†says Jon Proctor, Technical Director, GTBS
