The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is pleased to announce that RoyalCert has gained the GSTC-Accredited Certification Body status.
RoyalCert is an International certification body with HeadQuarters in Germany and operating in +40 countries globally. RoyalCert offers inspection, training, assessment and certification services to a wide range of industries, including the Tourism Industry, and serving thousands of customers worldwide. With experienced auditors, RoyalCert is committed to sustainable growth, focusing on integrity and customer satisfaction.
The stated scope of the GSTC Accreditation of RoyalCert is for certifying hotels and tour operators in Türkiye, Germany, Italy, Greece, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, and the Netherlands.
Achieving the GSTC-Accredited status means that a Certification Body has been verified to be conducting proper certification of businesses, such as hotels or tour operators, in a competent and neutral manner, following processes and procedures detailed in the GSTC Accreditation Manual.
Businesses certified by a GSTC-Accredited Certification Body, meeting all the GSTC Criteria (or a GSTC-Recognized Standard), have the highest level of assurance* and credibility available. With an accredited certification, customers and buyers are assured that the business was certified in a credibly verified procedure in a transparent, impartial, and competent manner.
“When we talk about green ports, we mean sustainable ports, the ones that properly distribute traffic, have clear rules and expect them to be respected. Shore power electricity, air quality measurements, environmentally friendly terminals, electrified shuttle transport by road and the use of the sea transport option is my image of sustainable port and sustainable destination.”
Jelka Tepšić, Deputy Mayor of DubrovnikJelka Tepšić is the Deputy Mayor of the City of Dubrovnik, as well as honorary consul to the Kingdom of Spain since 2014. She is a professor of the Spanish language, literature and Comparative literature and has over 30 years of experience in tourism, communication, media and marketing. In the City of Dubrovnik, Mrs Tepšić is responsible for tourism, sustainability and culture. During her work in past years, the city has been developing strategic, long-term project called “Respect the City”. She has participated in many congresses worldwide where she presented this project, which deals with innovative integrated development and focuses on the sustainable development of tourism in the city. She showed how the City administration faced with the problem of overcrowding, ensuring a better distribution of visitors and suppressing the negative effects of over-tourism. This Project was recognized as an example of good practice in destination management at the World Congress of the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC) in Krakow. Mrs Tepšić was a speaker at the GSTC2023 Sustainable Tourism Conference in Antalya, Türkiye (9-12 May, 2023), an event Ecoclub.com had the great pleasure of supporting as Media Partners. You may watch a recording of her presentation here.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com:For the past two decades, you have held important policy-making positions in an iconic tourism destination. Was that your original career plan, and what still motivates you in your work?
Jelka Tepšić:Achieved results are the best motivation. The path towards sustainable tourism is demanding, it is a process that requires daily work and coordination of stakeholders, with special emphasis on listening to the needs and wishes of the residents. Very often, the motive is the residents' dissatisfaction with a situation and their desire to change that situation, and in positions where we are standing, it is our duty to constantly work on new solutions.
In the old port city of Dubrovnik
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Overtourism in Dubrovnik nearly lost the city its UNESCO status in the mid 2010s. How successful has your 'Respect the City' programme been in tackling overtourism before the pandemic and what key measures did it involve? Who decided and still decides on the content of this degrowth programme? Do local citizens directly take part in the formulation of tourism policies, or is this role mainly reserved for tourism businesses?
Tourism is sustainable when it puts at the center the needs of the local communities and the environment. This is not something to aspire to but that should already be implemented in order to assure the future of travel.
Federica BoscoFederica Bosco holds a MSc in Tourism Economics and Management from Bologna University, Italy. Her research interests include destination management, sustainable tourism, certification, slow tourism and climate-positive tourism. She’s motivated by the mission to make tourism a positive driver of change for communities and the environment. As Project Officer for the Tourism Programme of Etifor, a spin-off of the University of Padova and B Corp, Ms Bosco supports destinations and organizations in the application of the sustainable tourism principles defined by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). She was involved in the development of the sustainable management system of three GSTC certified destinations in Italy: APT Valsugana e Lagorai (certified in 2019), Consorzio di Promozione Turistica del Tarvisiano, di Sella Nevea e del Passo Pramollo (2021) and the City of Siena (2023). Together with Diego Gallo, she is Etifor referent for the GSTC Italy Working Group, a recently established network of Italian GSTC members, aiming at the spread of GSTC in the national context. Other fields of work include participatory processes for destination management and tourism product development, slow tourism design and promotion. Ms Bosco recently spoke at the GSTC2023 Sustainable Tourism Conference in Antalya, Türkiye (9-12 May, 2023), an event Ecoclub.com had the great pleasure of supporting as Media Partners. You may watch a recording of her presentation here.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: What attracted you to this career and what is your personal interpretation of tourism sustainability based on your experience in the field?
Federica Bosco: My interest in tourism started because I was proud of my homeland and I was pushed by the desire to share its beauties and its heritage to others. I became aware of the need for effective management in order to make a territory hospitable, therefore I decided to deepen these concepts during my studies. Nowadays, sustainability is an essential part of management, not only in tourism, and even though we are used to associate this term with a positive meaning, we should acknowledge that it is simply the basics. Tourism is sustainable when it puts at the center the needs of the local communities and the environment. This is not something to aspire to but that should already be implemented in order to assure the future of travel.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Indeed, everyone talks about sustainability these days, with national tourism organizations editing their marketing copy to include the magic word in every other sentence. But it seems not everyone has the same thing on their minds: some really mean sustainable growth, adding eco-friendly options on top of existing ones, others mean trying to make all existing tourism green without further growth, and some point at overtourism and ask for degrowth - probably the less popular option for an industry fixated on ever-growing arrival numbers. Where do you stand on this issue?
Federica Bosco: Sustainability cannot be just about marketing, otherwise it should be called greenwashing! It is important to communicate the organizations’ efforts in minimizing their negative impacts and maximize their positive ones, while engaging stakeholders in the process. However, there must be clear commitments and actions taken by destinations and organizations to achieve the global goals that the scientific community has asked us to pursue, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that should be taken into account, not only arrivals and overnight stays.
Local labels that have built-in systems to suit the local context but that also meet international criteria such as GSTC, represent a good combination and opportunity to achieve what we all want, to be part of the transition and contribute to a sustainable tourism industry
Anna-Lenna WallinAnna-Lenna Wallin is a Destination Developer and Sustainability Strategist for Järvsö, the first destination in Sweden to achieve silver status in Earthcheck's certification program. Ms Wallin has worked since 2012 with the hospitality industry and is responsible for the ongoing certification work via Earthcheck at Järvsö. She is also a board member of The Swedish Society for Nature and Ecotourism and has worked with the Nature’s Best® label, Sweden’s only sustainability label for nature-based experiences, for over 20 years. Ms Wallin was a speaker at the GSTC2023 Sustainable Tourism Conference in Antalya, Türkiye (9-12 May, 2023), an event Ecoclub.com had the great pleasure of supporting as Media Partners.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Sweden is the first, or one of the first, countries to pass serious environmental legislation since the 1960s, and famously hosted the first UN Conference on the Environment in 1972 that led to the creation of UNEP. DId this general environmental-awareness of Sweden influence you in choosing a sustainability-related career in Tourism, or were you mostly fond of Tourism & Travel?
Anna-Lenna Wallin: My driving force is, and has been, to develop the place where I can thrive, live and work. The hospitality industry is an interesting and fun branch, and, precisely for our location, it is also part of our development.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com. So we understand that hospitality is important for Järvsö. But why did such a rural destination working with domestic tourism, primarily active families with young children, choose to get certified and how (and by whom) was the decision taken?
Anna-Lenna Wallin: The industry, through the destination company, already formulated in 2012 that we want to become Sweden's first sustainability-certified destination. It was later presented to the Municipality and adopted by the Political authorities. Crucial to our certification and our ongoing work is the collaboration between the municipality, industry and civil society. We want to drive the development of this place in the best possible way and we found now and then that a certification helps us keep that line and monitor all aspects of sustainability
The #GSTC2023 Global Sustainable Tourism Conference that took place on May 9th-12th in Antalya, Türkiye, brought together 350 delegates from 51 countries, along with hundreds of viewers that watched the live broadcasting of the conference. The conference was held at the Nirvana Cosmopolitan Hotel.
Participants included international and regional tourism stakeholders involved in developing and promoting sustainable tourism; including the public sector, hotels, tour operators, academia, development agencies, NGOs, consultants, and more. International participants came from Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
The GSTC Board on stage in Antalya
This year’s Conference focused on Destination Stewardship, Hotel Sustainability, Sustainable Tours, Experiences, and Attractions, and Sustainable MICE.
Mr. Luigi Cabrini, Chair, GSTC opened the conference by speaking about the uncertainties the industry is facing “This year we witness a strong recovery of international and domestic tourism, after the dramatic drop of over 70% during 2020 and 2021, when millions of jobs were lost, thousands of enterprises went bankrupt, and destinations struggled to survive. Many of these destinations are now returning almost to normality, as people are eager to travel again, after lockdowns and travel restrictions. But we are still facing economic and geopolitical challenges, such as the war in Ukraine, a high inflation, and soaring costs of all components related to travel and tourism. In this uncertain context, international tourism, globally, is not expected to return to pre-pandemics levels before 2024 at the earliest.”
He also added how the GSTC Criteria has helped the industry achieve higher levels of sustainability “Time has shown that GSTC filled a gap by making available a framework that can serve both the private and the public sector to achieve higher levels of sustainability. The GSTC membership today includes tourism authorities of over 25 countries, together with leaders of the private sectors, NGOs, universities, destinations and many others. We welcome this variety as a strength for GSTC, where the tourism sector is represented in its multiple facets and interests.”
Speaking at the conference’s opening, Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy expressed his pleasure at hosting the most competent experts and opinion leaders of sustainable tourism in Türkiye. Ersoy said the GSTC 2023 Global Sustainable Tourism Conference would become a valuable information and idea exchange platform, creating significant gains for sustainable tourism worldwide. Minister Ersoy also noted that beyond acting as a pioneer by becoming the first country in the world to sign an agreement with GSTC for a national sustainability program at the governmental level, it had already become a global leader in sustainable tourism practices.
Publisher: Common Notions ISBN: 978-1-942173-76-2 Published: April 2023, Paperback, Pages: 256
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In fact, this book makes a strong case, bordering on a polemic, that it is rather bad intentions, those of Big Conservation, that paves the road to hell for the Indigenous peoples. It proposes alternative conservation models fully involving the Indigenous, the traditional, wise guardians of nature, and rightful owners of what became "Protected Areas", National and Transboundary Parks. Despite centuries of displacement by colonialism, Conservation rarely takes place in a vacuum with total wilderness remaining, largely, a myth. Conservation nearly always affects indigenous and local people and should no longer take place at their detriment or without their full and informed consent and participation. This is an eye-opening book that every well-meaning supporter and employee of big conservation organizations should read. Edited by Survival International’s Fiore Longo and Ashley Dawson and written in a reader-friendly, non-technical style, it contains first-hand testimonials/horror stories and views of some 40 authors, mostly indigenous activists but also analysis by academics from 18 countries, in Africa, South Asia (predominantly India) South America, Europe and North America. Most chapters are based on presentations at the “Our Land, Our Nature” congress, which was organized by Survival International, Minority Rights Group and Rainforest Foundation UK, and held in Marseille in September 2021, during the pandemic.
The central argument of the book is more or less: Wilderness is an artificial concept, as on the one hand Humanity is not separate from Nature and on the other around half of the protected areas had been previously inhabited by indigenous people who managed them wisely. Characteristically, the world’s first park, Yosemite, was developed in the land of the Miwok people, 39 years after they had been expelled by miners. California’s empty parks, also thanks to the Climate Change, now catch fire more easily. Big Conservation is an industry, with roots in Colonial times, and like any other industry, in its neocolonial (and neoCO2lonial) form, is out to make money from the Global South. In addition, this industry is hypocritical too as it claims to save nature and communities while actually destroying them both, by displacing communities and allowing extractive activities inside protected areas. It leverages the Climate Crisis to protect vast new chunks of ‘wilderness’ (from the current `17% of the world or roughly the size of Russia, to reach 30% by 2023 under the infamous 30x30 plan ) so as to attract huge additional funding (up to $10 trillion by some estimates, little of which will reach the communities) by greenwashing (via offsets, REDD and nature-based-solutions) corporations so that the latter can go on polluting, extracting and exploiting, sometimes within the said protected area. Other funds are being generated through cooperation with the intelligence community to combat illegal wildlife trade, also a source of funding for extremist groups. In essence, the big 5 (pun intended) conservation organizations of the Anglo world, are the new “East India” and “East Africa” Companies of the colonial era, thus we have a neocolonial conservation model. As their forefathers, they went in first, then came the troops: conservation is becoming increasingly militarized, with lethal effects for indigenous and locals. In Tanzania , Malawi, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Botswana and some of India’s states, among others, there is a shoot-on-sight policy, so rangers are allowed to shoot first and ask questions later. Anyones that moves inside the forest is conveniently called a poacher, even if hunting for subsistence. In Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the biggest rainforest reserve in Africa and one of the biggest in the world, there have been several “extra-judicial killings'' (a polite synonym for “murders”) of suspected “poachers”. Pastoralists are also unwanted and occasionally shot at. While agro-pastoralism is accepted in France and within Cévennes National Park (a World Heritage Site) for some reason it is not fit for Tanzania and the Maasai traditional pastures. Could this just be plain racism?
