Herbert Hamele

Networking Ecotourism in Europe

Herbert Hamele, Saarbrücken/Germany

ECOTRANS e.V.

European Network for Sustainable Tourism Developmen t

European Ecotourism Conference 2010, Pärnu / Estoni a, 27-30 sep 2010

Herbert Hamele

Globalization Agenda 21 The Internet

Local – global A21 value system networked

Global Challenges & Opportunities

Tourism stakeholders need:

environmental & social responsible control systems of supply chain & destination management

a Sustainable Tourism guidance & governance system

Holistic approach: multi-stakeholder, multi-level, multi-sector, multi- thematic processes

Herbert Hamele

The “European Ecotourism Labelling Standard” - EETLS

• Using the “Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria” as guidance

• European objectives, guiding

Ecotourism in Europe

• European objectives, guiding criteria and indicators

• Useful for teaching and training, certification, marketing and monitoring of Ecotourism

A common value system for networking of ecotourism in Europe

Herbert Hamele

To give public access to Sustainable Tourism information

• UN Partnership for Sustainable Development with European Environment

The DestiNet portal for networking

Development with European Environment Agency, UN WTO, UNEP and ECOTRANS.

• Technical networking tool to connect sustainable tourism stakeholders

• Development of a coherent international content structure based on the UNEP/UNWTO publication ‘Making Tourism More Sustainable , a Guide for Policy Makers’ 2005, and more recently, the “Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria”

Herbert Hamele

DestiNet Portal Technical characteristics

The Portal is designed as

• a common space for tourism administrators, businesses, NGOs, consultants and academic bodies

• to map and develop more sustainable destinations and sustainable destinations and tourism supply chain products/services drawing from a global knowledge base of best practice information.

Users can upload their own information, or search and display any content related to sustainable tourism from local to global level. www.destinet.eu

Herbert Hamele

The DestiNet system and tools (1-5)

1. a map-based market place for sustainable tourism products and services at any operational level in any part of the globe

2. an information resource on sustainable tourism, accessible by topic or by territory

3. a best practice library of examples how to implement sustainable tourism

4. a stakeholder listing and mapping system with freesearch and multiple filtering

5. a communications tool, disseminating news and events , hosting on-line forums , offering bulk emails , user feedback and ratings features, and RSS and XML feeds

Herbert Hamele

The DestiNet system and tools (6-9)

6. a quality assessment system and clearing house for identifying and avoiding greenwash

7. a workgroup tool , allowing website linking, collective online editing of documents, folder content administration, crowd data collection methodologies and networking administration

8. a website content provision system, using iFrametechnology to run various portal features on several different websites

9. a multi-lingual interface to global information, offering a choice of 57 different languages with translation facilities.

Herbert Hamele

DestiNet use: examples

�100 sustainable tourism certificates and standards worldwide

�500 certified and recommended tourism and initiatives in Latin America

�100 Universities in Europe offering sustainable tourism coursessustainable tourism courses

�20 Sustainable tourism awards

�20 green tourism promotion & marketing sites

�400 awarded tourism businesses and destinations worldwide (“Atlas of Excellence ”)

�200 Ecotourism publications (European “Eco-Destinet” project)

Herbert Hamele

Herbert Hamele

Sustainable Tourism in Latin America

www.greentravelbridge.de

Networking partners link their initiatives, certifiedand recommendedbusinesses, committedincoming operators andother information with the

asr + gtz projectDestiNet Atlas –

- the German association of independent travel businesses (asr ) uses DestiNet as central and independent information source fortheir „Green Travel Bridge “ project: to recommend certifiedhotels, incoming operators or initiatives to German tour operators, to train their travel agencies to market and sell „green“ packagesto the German consumers and give feedback to the partners in Latin America.

Herbert Hamele

Ecotourism: European Charter Parcs

The 70 national and nature parcs who havesuccessfully implemented the European Charter forSustainable Tourism in protected areas are shown on DestiNet with .

Herbert Hamele

Ecotourism : The European Eco-Destinet project

The Eco-Destinet project uses an own folder on DestiNetwith a public section for dissemination and a restrictedsection for internal information and communication.

Herbert Hamele

Start: October/ November 2010

�Using the EETLS as common value system (Topics)

�Using DestiNet as Internet tool for building the European Ecotourism Network

Outlook 2010-2012: The ECOLNET project to network Ecotourism in Europe

Ecotourism Network

�Inviting stakeholders from local to European andinternational level to join and to make them visible

�Support the dissemination of their tools, good practices, professional services and events

�Facilitate exchange of knowledge and experiences

�Contribute to monitoring Ecotourism development

Herbert Hamele

„In future our main concern will no longer bewhether we can travel to every place on earth.

Our main interest will be whether it isworthwhile arriving there.“

Hermann Löns, German poet, 1908

Thank you for your attention!

Herbert Hamele herbert.hamele@ecotrans.de

ECOTRANS e.V. www.ecotrans.org

DestiNet www.destinet.eu

Hermann Löns, German poet, 1908