Green Globe moves into Greece and Cyprus

Another geography is being added to the leader of eco travel certification. Green Globe has announced a partnership with Green Wealth, Ltd. to Deliver Green Globe Licensed Products in Greece and Cyprus Markets. There are 9,000 hotels in Greece and Cyprus so that is an interesting move. However we dont know how many potential eco or green hotels there is in Greece and Cyprus.

The GG products and services that will be delivered by Green Wealth include:

- Green Globe Certification, the international green certification scheme. More info at http://www.greenglobecertification.com/

- Green Globe accreditation training

- the Green Globe Index tool . More info at http://www.greenglobeindex.com/

- and the whole range of Green Globe consulting services.

That's another sign that Ecotravel certification will go across the globe with coherent and guidelines under the leadership of Green Globe, 5% of which is owned by the WTTC.

Egypt, a new place for ecotourism, ecotravel and green hotels?

Egypt is an incredibly attractive tourism destination; it all started more than 2000 years ago when Roman travellers visited Egypt to see the ancient pharaonic ruins.

Today tourism is Egypt's most important industry, with 2.2 million jobs - however over 75% of the country's tourist activity is concentrated on the Red Sea - thus mass tourism threatens to ruin Egypt's unique heritage.

Fortunately there is an extremely active Ecotourism Committee in the Egyptian Tourism Federation, accessible at http://www.etf.org.eg/ETFCommittees.asp?comm_id=3

Their area of action includes protecting natural areas and cracking down on illegal hunting.

They also produce a weekly half-hour program in cooperation with Egyptian satellite television called Egypt the Land of Beauty which features Egypt’s protected areas, ecotourism activities, eco-lodges, and indigenous tribes of Egypt’s three deserts.

The passage of a law in 1983 has also led to the declaration of 27 protected areas in Egypt that you can locate online at the following map:

http://www.biomapegypt.org/biodiversity/Eco_tourism/index.html

Hyatt catching up with the eco trend ?

Hyatt Regency O’Hare, one of the flaghotel of the group, locatred next to Chicago, USA, has just announced a number of environmentally friendly initiatives, such as

- extensive recycling,

- water conservation programs,

- energy conservation programs.

The hotel has just received the WasteWise certification from the Environmental Protection Agency, and is claiming to constantly strive to set industry standards in responsible eco-friendly practices.

We have covered Accor and IHG in this blog - happy to learn that another major hotel group is embarking on a green policy...

Happy to hear the feedback of guests and visitors in the hotel !

Dear readers,

for further information, discussion and resources about ecotourism and green hotels, we invite you to join our linkedin Ecotourism Professionals group at http://tinyurl.com/dke5zv - to share and learn about ecotourism...

Thanks

Caribbean en route for a greener tourism

We highlighted a couple of times already the move to the region for a more responsible tourism.

The region is indeed suffering badly from a degradation of its ecosystem, from potential sea level rise, coastal erosion, extreme weather events to an increase in disease.

Therefore the region has launched a so-called Caribsave program where tourism boards, tourism operators and partner are planning to:

- Model regional, national and destinational climate-change potential
- Assess vulnerabilities
- Measure and evaluate knock-on impacts on tourism and livelihoods
- Inform and develop regional policy
- Develop, implement and monitor adaptation and mitigation strategies
- Build capacity and transfer skills through design and implementation of initiatives
- Create the world’s first ‘Carbon Neutral’ tourism region

Lots of goals and targets then , we will keep you posted on the outcome...