Ecotourism & Sustainable Tourism Headlines

Nigel Thornton

“We wanted something different from a run-of-the-mill or traditional building...we wanted to make a minimum impact on the environment and to create a more sustainable lifestyle, a business that would be small enough to be run entirely by two people but big enough to be able to live a simple life but a good life”

Nigel Thornton was born in Woking, Surrey and grew up in the suburbs in Walton on Thames. He moved to London at 17 and there he had a very varied employment history working with musicians, street trading, estate agency and antique trading. He settled into working with refugees in temporary housing in 1988 and moved through various positions in social housing, dealing with social deprivation, followed by local authority work in North London and East London. He gradually became disillusioned with the political aspects of his work and together with his wife, an Acupuncturist born in Valencia, started looking for other options to make a difference. They decided to create an eco-hotel and bought the land near Valderrobres in Aragon, Spain in 2004. The first two years passed while trying to obtain building permits due to the innovative, environmentally friendly aspects of their project. The construction phase took another three years with Nigel travelling nearly every Friday to Spain and every Monday back to the office in London. Mas del Bot welcomed its first guests in November 2008.

Ecoclub: What attracted you to this profession or vocation and this specific location?

Nigel Thornton: The specific location was chosen following a several week journey through Spain in 2002. We chanced upon Los Puertos de Beceite because my brother-in-law was here with several family members on holiday and we wanted to visit him. I was enchanted by the unspoilt beauty of the area and the people who were open and friendly. We were looking for an opportunity to break away from working in the city; we were living in London, my work involved high levels of stress working with vulnerable people within local government. My wife is an Acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine practitioner and could take her work almost anywhere but mine was difficult to move abroad. I have always been interested in design and architecture, especially indigenous design, my father was a carpenter and builder, and also have always worked with people in one form or other and therefore the hotel / hospitality industry seemed a good fit.

Ecoclub: Why did you decide to build your facility from scratch and, in particular, with straw-bale?

Nigel Thornton: We wanted something different from a run-of-the-mill or traditional building. Firstly, we wanted to make a minimum impact on the environment and to create a more sustainable lifestyle, a business that would be small enough to be run entirely by two people but big enough to be able to live a simple life but a good life. Additionally, we felt that this product, which was at that time pretty much unknown in Spain ,would give us a niche in the hotel world, a market which was just beginning. Finally, we wanted to build something sustainable / ecological that would illustrate to people that living sustainably didn't mean living in a cave with basic amenities but could be a "luxury" lifestyle. Such a property was just not going to be available, certainly not where we wanted to build, so building from scratch was our only option.

We chose straw bale as it interested me, was sustainable and seemed to be something that could be taken on by non-professionals. We did a one week course in the UK and with the naivety of relatively young people decided we could build a house. Initially, I thought it would also be cheaper than a traditional concrete build, something that in reality was not the case. We found a young architects' cooperative in Barcelona who worked with ecological constructions and were keen to experiment. We sourced a local builder who was open to new ideas, researched a lot, downloaded loads of information from the internet and liaised with people with more experience than us in Spain and Germany, and then just went for it.

Arif and Marta

“A true Ecolodge is a business that puts environmental values into practice on various levels and at the same time allows its owners to make a reasonable living.”

Arif Qureshi was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1960 of an American mother and a Pakistani father. He grew up and went to school in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Mr Qureshi obtained a Master's degree in architecture at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana with a specialisation in the preservation and renovation of older buildings. He worked in architecture and in building construction in Illinois for a couple of years and then moved to Barcelona, Spain in 1987 intending 'to spend a year in the city' but ended up living over 15 years there. He obtained a Master's degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University of Barcelona and worked as a freelance English teacher in businesses, government agencies and several universities in Barcelona. Together with his wife, Marta Maristany, a Catalan linguist, they moved in 2003 to the Pyrénees of Southern France to create and run an ecolodge together. L'Orris des Planès Trailside Ecolodge opened its doors in February 2005. 15 Years later, having turned it into a successful green business, they have decided to put it up for sale and undertake a new venture in another part of France.

Ecoclub: Did you always plan to become an Ecolodge Owner? What was your background and original idea and why did you choose this area and this particular village?

Arif Qureshi: Not at all. My original profession was architecture and my second profession was Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Before moving here and creating our lodge, my wife Marta and I lived and worked in the centre of Barcelona. Though we liked the city, we were always in the Pyrenees during our vacations and finally decided it would be more logical to move from the city to these mountains. The transition took several years. After a two-year search, we decided to buy a 300-year-old farmhouse here in the tiny village of Planès in the Eastern Pyrenees of France. Though it needed major renovation work, we chose this property because it is set on the GR10, the Transpyrenees hiking trail, and because it is just 2 km from a downhill ski resort. As we were making a big investment, both of time and money, to create the lodge, we figured this combination of Summer and Winter activities would allow us to run our business year round and that this would help to make the business successful.

“Tourism can either be something that is "done" to a destination by outside forces – a colonial and extractive industry. Or it can be something driven by the destination: stimulating investment, entrepreneurship and small business development”

Jeremy Sampson is the new Chief Executive Officer of the Travel Foundation. Before taking the helm at the international tourism charity, he was already well-known and respected within tourism and conservation networks with a wealth of experience in Sustainable Tourism, having worked across the spectrum of destinations, industry, NGOs, and academia. He has held leadership positions for a range of organisations, including as President of international tour operator GreenSpot Travel and Vice President at Sustainable Travel International. More recently, Mr Sampson has led large-scale sustainable tourism initiatives for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Mediterranean Cooperation Centre, working across Southern Europe and North Africa. He holds a BA in Mass Communications from University of California, Berkeleay and was an Adjunct Professor at the International Institute of Tourism Studies at George Washington University. His motto is "do good work with great people"!

The Travel Foundation (Web: www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk) is a charity that works in partnership with leading tourism organizations to improve the impacts of tourism and shape a positive future for destinations. Since it was set up in 2003, with seed-funding from the UK Foreign Office and major tourism industry players, it has worked in 28 popular holiday destinations around the world. Its head office is in Bristol, UK and it has a global network of project managers.

Ecoclub: Congratulations on assuming your new, important position as the CEO of the Travel Foundation! What attracted you to this organisation and this role and what real difference do you aim to bring? 

Jeremy Sampson: I’ve worked with the Travel Foundation in the past and I’ve always been impressed by the way it seeks to tackle the root causes of issues and take a commercially savvy approach. It has a great reputation for the quality of its work and its credibility as a partner organisation. Over the last 16 years it’s grown from a UK-based collaborator to become a leading global organisation and during that time it’s tested many methodologies and developed its approaches. The sustainable tourism movement is gaining momentum and I hope to capitalise on that with the Travel Foundation. We have a lot of experience and talent in the team and we aim to build on that and become even more innovative and collaborative in our approach. We understand that we’re a small team and we can’t work alone - so we’re actively and strategically finding new partners to work with. Our Invisible Burden report [how destinations must uncover and account for tourism’s hidden costs] is part of our strategy to help the industry address systemic change across the private and public sector. Tourism can’t continue to be managed in the way it currently is. 

Madrid, 22 January 2020: The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative is officially announced today by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This initiative unites the tourism sector behind a common vision to tackle the root causes of plastic pollution, enabling businesses and governments to take joint action.

The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative is ground-breaking and ambitious in its goals. It aims to reduce the amount of plastic pollution caused by the tourism sector. To achieve this vision, tourism companies and destinations will be required to make a set of concrete and actionable commitments by 2025, including to: 

  • Eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging and items by 2025; 
  • Take action to move from single-use to reuse models or reusable alternatives by 2025; 
  • Engage the value chain to move towards 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable; 
  • Take action to increase the amount of recycled content across all plastic packaging and items used; 
  • Commit to collaborate and invest to increase the recycling and composting rates for plastics; 
  • Report publicly and annually on progress made towards these targets. 

Plastic pollution is one of the major environmental challenges of our time, and tourism has an important role to play in contributing to the solution

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is pleased to announce the release of the GSTC Destination Criteria v2.0, which had been under development for most of 2019.
GSTC Criteria serve as the global baseline standards for sustainability in travel and tourism. The Criteria are used for education and awareness-raising, policy-making for businesses and government agencies and other organization types, measurement and evaluation, and as a basis for certification. To date, two sets of GSTC Criteria have been developed: Destination Criteria and Industry Criteria. They are the result of a worldwide effort to develop a common language about sustainability in tourism. They are arranged in four pillars: (1) Sustainable management; (2) Socioeconomic impacts; (3) Cultural impacts; and (4) Environmental impacts (including consumption of resources, reducing pollution, and conserving biodiversity and landscapes).

Athens, 20 January 2020 - The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) has announced a new sustainable tourism seminar in Athens, through the GSTC’s Sustainable Tourism Training Program (STTP).

According to Sustainability Leaders, this particular seminar is the most recognised and trustworthy training program globally for certifying professionals in the field of Sustainable Tourism. Recent statements by the Greek Ministry of Tourism reveal that Sustainability will be one pillar, perhaps the most important, of the new national 10 Year Tourism Strategy while education and certification of individuals in the principles of sustainability and global affairs also becomes a primary objective!

Rika Jean-Francois

"Tourism can be a door opener and can help to break down prejudices. The boycotting of certain destinations will harm the affected people living in the destinations. We believe in dialogue instead"

Rika Jean-François holds a Master Degree in Social Anthropology and Iranian Studies with an expertise on ethnic identities, sustainable development and diversity issues from the Free University of Berlin, Germany. She started to work in tourism as a tour guide in Greece, while studying at the University of Crete and as an incoming agent in Athens. Back in Germany she was a counsellor at the University’s International Academic Exchange Office and travelled as a researcher to Iran, Malawi and Haiti. Ms Jean-François obtained an additional qualification in Quality Management, working on the evaluation of development aid workers' education for the German Development Service (DED). Since 2004 she has been with Messe Berlin and vitally developed ITB’s Corporate Social Responsibility. As ITB’s head of CSR, she is a passionate speaker at sustainable tourism events internationally. Putting an emphasis on human rights and diversity, she has spearheaded ITB’s implementation of the LGBT travel segment and was a member of the board of directors of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) for 5 consecutive years. Currently she serves on the board of the IGLTA Foundation. She is also a board member of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) and of PATA (Pacific Asian Travel Association), supports many international sustainability committees and is a jury member at several global responsible tourism contests. At ITB, Ms Jean-François is also heading business relations in India and the Medical Tourism segment and has the overall responsibility for ITB’s official Partner Country program. We interviewed Ms Jean-François on the occasion of the GSTC2019 Global Conference in the Azores in December 2019 where she participated in a panel discussing "Marketing sustainability and influencing travelers' preferences".

Ecoclub: Even though German is not widely spoken around the world, ITB Berlin has arguably become the world's most important tourism expo. What is its unique selling point and the main ingredients of its success and endurance over the years?

Rika Jean-François: The German language might not be spoken widely but the German tourism source market is quite wooed and important and Berlin is internationally well-connected. The ITB fair has grown constantly since its foundation 54 years ago. Meanwhile, ITB Berlin is a firmly established event and the world’s largest travel trade show, which every year is attended by 10,000 exhibitors and some 160,000 visitors. We do not only sell square meters to exhibitors but look at global tourism from many angles. Tourism is an important contribution to intercultural dialogue – not only does travel broaden tourists’ horizons, but people in the destinations benefit from meeting other cultures, too.  The ITB Berlin Convention, which runs in parallel with the show, represents the tourism industry’s most important think tank. Both the trade show and the convention focus on many CSR-related issues. Additionally, ITB is present with all sorts of site events all through the year and is actively involved in many industry activities.

GSTC2019

The GSTC 2019 Global Sustainable Tourism Conference “Navigating the Way Forward” that took place on December 4th-7th in Terceira Island, the Azores, brought together 250 delegates from 42 countries, along with hundreds of viewers that watched the live broadcasting of the conference.

The Conference themes were: (A) Sustainable Destination Management; (B) Market Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Products; and (C) Tourism Response to Climate Change

“Our challenge is twofold: we need to create effective and practical tools to mainstream sustainability in tourism and to convince those skeptical decision-makers, who are not ready nor convinced, to evolve from their ‘business as usual’ methods. This has been our goal at the Global Sustainable Tourism Council for the last 12 years,” said GSTC Chair, Mr. Luigi Cabrini, mentioned the following achievements of GSTC: The Criteria for Destinations and the Industry are widely recognized by the public and the private sectors as relevant instruments to inform strategies and planning of central and regional governments, destinations, hotel chains, tour operators, etc. The Accreditation Program for certification bodies is steadily progressing despite its novelty when compared with other sectors and the difficulties deriving from the complexity and the transverse nature of the tourism chain. Every year several hundreds of people with responsibilities in tourism receive training, tailored to their needs, on the use of the criteria. Finally, the GSTC has made important steps forward to position sustainable tourism in the markets, a key factor for any change to be relevant at the global level.
“Of course, much remains to be done and we are just one of the many organizations committed, in different ways, to promote and to implement more responsible practices in a difficult context,” concluded Mr. Cabrini (full speech). 

Jeppe Klockareson

"...there is so much focus at the moment on the environmental aspects of sustainability, whereby the rest seems to be forgotten"

Jeppe Klockareson has worked with sustainable tourism development for almost 15 years and has a background as CEO at Basecamp Explorer Sweden and as Product Manager at STA Travel Nordic. Since 2010, he runs Fair Travel, a responsible travel consultancy in Stockholm, offering expertise in sustainable tourism development to customers worldwide, through advisory, audits, consulting, lectures, training, project work and sales and marketing support. Mr Klockareson has been a member of the board of the Swedish Nature and Ecotourism Association since 2014 and acts as the Swedish representative for The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). Fair Travel is also GSTC's official training partner in the Nordic region.

Ecoclub: In your experience as a leading Sustainable Tourism Consultant, how easy is it to convince a seasoned tourism business owner that first - they need to green their act, and, second, that they need a Consultant to do so? What traits should they look for when choosing one?

Jeppe Klockareson: Times are certainly changing at the moment where sustainability aspects are becoming more of a certainty and expectation compared to just a year ago. Given the recent awareness in sustainability aspects, coming from the mass media coverage, consumers have become more aware and more demanding, thus resulting in a need for tourism businesses to change. Therefore, it is not so much an issue of convincing them, but more an aspect of making them understand the full concept of sustainability. The challenge that I see now is that there is so much focus at the moment on the environmental aspects of sustainability, whereby the rest seems to be forgotten. This is where I see the challenge, to be able to make them understand that they need to embrace the full aspect of sustainability. It goes beyond just offsetting your carbon emissions and turning to train travel. Once it is understood that they might not have all the knowledge themselves, that’s also where they see the need for advisory and knowledge coming from an external consultant. The traits to look for are experience and above else, creating sustainability instead of just talking about it. I see knowledge in the GSTC criteria and how to apply them as a trait. 

Marcello Gandolfi

“ Tourism industry, in every community, will always gather promoters and opponents. It is very important to understand the reasons that move some people to refuse tourism, clarify misunderstandings and plan how to include them into the destination ”

Marcello Gandolfi is a Community Based Tourism Expert specialised in designing, managing and implementing tourism and development programs in close partnership with civil society organisations, private and public actors of the travel industry value chain. Based in Lima, between 2010 and 2013 he implemented a sustainable tourism program linking 3,000 tourism SMEs to the main tour operators in the Andean region. Funded by the Inter-American Development Bank and CAF, the program established the first regional route of Sustainable Tourism in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador and generated 1.5 million euros in sales of community tourism experiences. As Project Director of CODESPA Foundation since 2013 he is responsible for the global implementation of economic development programs in 11 Asian, African and Latin America Countries. Key projects at CODESPA involved designing a method for integrating communities into tourism value chains (RUTAS) and the MICE sector. The relevant training, marketing and quality standards that he developed are now in use by local governments and Ministries of Tourism. Since 2017, as an UNWTO Academy Trainer, he teaches public officers of Latin America Ministries of Tourism on how to integrate communities with tourism. Mr Gandolfi holds a BSc in Economics and International Organisations Management (Luigi Bocconi University), a Master of International Development and Cooperation (University of Bologna) and a Master of Business Administration and Emotional Intelligence (EAE Business School of Barcelona). 

Ecoclub: What attracted you to Community Based Tourism (CBT) and what is your personal, short definition of CBT? What is its unique selling point?

Marcello Gandolfi: I was firstly attracted to Community Based Tourism for professional reasons. I am an economist working on market-based solutions for poverty, and I saw tourism as a great social and economic development opportunity for vulnerable communities living close to main travel destinations. To me, CBT is a type of tourism that involves local communities managing and developing their own tourism industry, whereby travellers can experience the community's way of life and consider their impacts upon the destination they are visiting. Its unique selling point nowadays is CBT match with XXI century travellers’ mega trends: human connection experience, cultural heritage discovery, active tourism and learning, will to have a positive impact into destination.

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  2. Hilton LightStay is Now a GSTC-Recognized Standard
  3. New CREST Report Examines Impact Tourism
  4. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) welcomes Booking.com as a new Member
  5. Greek island of Kythera hosts Green Flag Trails Auditor Training Course