GSTC promotes market access for certified sustainable businesses to travelers and travel providers of hotels/accommodations, with a strong preference for those businesses certified by accredited Certification Bodies. Online Travel Agencies (OTA’s) are responding to market demand for sustainable products and to their internal CSR and sustainability goals by seeking methods to provide easy and clear access to sustainable products and services to the marketplace of travelers.
Implemented in
- Africa
- Asia / Pacific
- Europe and Central Asia
- Latin America / Caribbean
- Middle East
- North America
Sectors of activity
Education, Public Procurement, Tourism
Type of initiative
Education & Awareness Raising, Policy Frameworks & Tools
Submitted on:
09/02/2021Objectives
GSTC promotes market access for certified sustainable businesses to travelers and travel providers of hotels/accommodations, with a strong preference for those businesses certified by accredited Certification Bodies. Online Travel Agencies (OTA’s) are responding to market demand for sustainable product and to their internal CSR and sustainability goals by seeking methods to provide easy and clear access to sustainable products and services to the marketplace of travelers. OTAs wish to highlight with a mark and provide their users a filter to identify “sustainable” hotels based on a reliable source of information.
Activities
As collected through the One Planet Reporting
Outcome level
SCP changes in practice
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Hotelbeds joins the GSTC and launches The Green Hotels Programme to support sustainable tourism
Hotelbeds joins the GSTC and launches The Green Hotels Programme to support sustainable tourism
Regions
Global / All regions
Lead organization
Hotelbeds
Objective
In order to focus on establishing a more responsible and sustainable business model, Hotelbeds now has over 15,000 properties within its portfolio certified as sustainable.
Achievements
Hotelbeds launched the Green Hotels Programme, a turn-key solution to bring Hotelbeds and its partners to the green economy and accelerate the transition of the travel industry towards sustainability. These hotels will now be easily identifiable to the more than 60,000 travel trade client partners of Hotelbeds and Bedsonline – including travel agents, tour operators, airlines and point redemption schemes – via this new green filter that will include details of certifications and offer tags. As part of this initiative, Hotelbeds can confirm that it has become a full member of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), the leading global authority in setting and managing standards for sustainable travel & tourism. To certify properties as sustainable, Hotelbeds has partnered with global sustainability certification companies to identify fully certified hotel properties following the criteria of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) for hotels.
Impact and Results
The GSTC promotes the development of broad market adoption and application of the GSTC Criteria. With the ultimate goal of increasing demand for sustainable travel and tourism offerings and building trust amongst travelers, the GSTC works to identify opportunities and solutions for alignment greater market potential. For this, we work closely with prominent Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) on marking hotels that are certified in search results. We also work as with large travel providers for preferred contracting of certified hotels and tour operators.
Next steps and how to get involved
OTAs interested in collaboration can contact GSTC directly.