In April 2024, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) held the #GSTC2024Sweden International Conference in Stockholm centered on "Purposeful Travel", in collaboration with Visit Sweden and the Agency for Growth (Tillväxtverket). To share key insights, Visit Sweden summarized the event in six articles on “Sustainable Hospitality” (Hållbar Besöksnäring). ‘’Social Issues - Welcoming and Inclusive’’ [...]
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s (GSTC) Hotel Sustainability Training for Industry Professionals, organized in partnership with Agoda and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), successfully concluded on August 2nd, 2024. This two-day training, held in Colombo, Sri Lanka aimed to equip hoteliers with the skills and knowledge necessary to implement sustainable tourism practices [...]
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), with support from the Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA), is further developing the GSTC Criteria, the global standards for sustainable tourism, with a new set for tourism food service providers (official name to be determined during the development process). This new set of GSTC Criteria will [...]
Busan International Tourism City Forum with UN Tourism, held the 8th of August 2024 at the Busan Bexco Convention in South Korea, brought together industry leaders, local businesses, and international experts from the tourism industry. Hosted by Busan Metropolitan City Tourism Association and with UN Tourism, Busan Tourism Organization and Busan Tourism Future Network [...]
Booking.com's 2024 Sustainable Travel Report sheds light on the evolving landscape of sustainable travel, emphasizing the need for cross-industry collaboration to address ongoing challenges. This annual report, now in its ninth edition, draws from extensive research involving over 31,000 travelers across 34 countries. It provides a comprehensive overview of current traveler attitudes, perceptions, and [...]
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), BCD Travel China, and Colorful Earth have officially launched the “Guidelines for Developing Corporate Sustainable Business Travel Strategies.” This comprehensive guide is part of the partnership signed last year, which includes training programs aimed at aiding corporate clients, travel managers, and sustainability professionals in embracing and implementing sustainable [...]
Views of sustainability are evolving for the better in the travel and tourism industry, but Randy Durband, CEO of Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) says there is still room for improvement. Since the start of GSTC’s work in 2007, has the travel and tourism community changed the way it regards sustainable tourism concepts? Indeed, [...]
When it comes to sustainability, travel can feel like a double-edged sword. On one hand, exploring the world helps to cultivate empathy towards new cultures and can lead to radical change. On the other, the potential emissions from hopping on a plane and touring around a destination is at odds with a cleaner planet. [...]
Reaffirming Booking.com’s commitment to showcase more sustainable travel options to its customers, and to help support accommodation partners on actions they can take to operate more sustainably, the digital travel platform has announced some updates to how it will display more sustainable choices to travelers around the world, focusing on third-party certifications. Booking.com will [...]
(Left to right): Dr. Bryan Byrne, USAID/India Development Partnerships and Innovations Office, Director; Mr. Omri Morgenshtern, CEO, Agoda; Mr. CB Ramkumar, Vice Chair, GSTC. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), Digital travel platform Agoda, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have partnered to provide sustainability trainings for hoteliers across [...]
Raising the sustainability performance of their hotels is an important part of the TUI Sustainability Agenda. One way of measuring progress is through globally acknowledged sustainability certificates. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) establishes and manages global standards for sustainable travel and tourism, known as the GSTC Criteria. Photo credit: TUI Blue Sarigerme [...]
Here are some of TUI's achievements in the area of sustainability. TUI will continue to make progress in 2024: by strengthening the positive impact of tourism around the world, by reducing the environmental footprint of our operations, and by taking of colleagues and customers with them on this journey. Tourism is a force for [...]
GSTC’s Roi Ariel shares how the increasing number of certification bodies is changing the meetings industry. An increasing number of certification bodies have entered the MICE industry to certify hotels as sustainable. These include Bureau Veritas, Vireo Srl and Control Union. The latter, for example, has more than 200 certification programmes. Such certification bodies [...]
A breakdown of what common environmental lingo actually means. How can travelers distinguish between rigorous sustainability certifications and ones that just sound good? Illustration by Virginia Gabrielli. Carbon neutral. Carbon offsets. Carbon onsets. As a sign of the tourism industry’s progress, these terms are now everywhere when you’re booking travel. More and [...]
Teton County’s Destination Sustainability Journey Tim O’Donogue, Coordinator, Jackson Hole & Yellowstone Sustainable Destination Program and GSTC Early Adopter Destination Liaison for Teton County Teton County has a significant history of stewardship dating back to 1872 with the creation of the world’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park. This achievement was followed by the [...]
