WORLDWIDE: The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) has published the GSTC-Certified Hotels Directory.
The resource is designed to help destinations, businesses, and consumers find accommodations that have been certified as sustainable by GSTC-accredited Certification Bodies.
While the terms “sustainable”, “eco-friendly” or “green,” are often used to describe accommodations and hotels, which have sustainable attributes, GSTC says that GSTC Certification provides assurance that a property’s sustainability practices have been independently verified through rigorous, third-party audits conducted by GSTC-accredited Certification Bodies.
The accommodation or hotels also have to undergo continuous improvement through audits and monitoring.
For clarification – and because certification and accreditation are often muddled – the term GSTC Certification is a shorthand for Certified by a Certification Body that is GSTC-Accredited. You can read more about this and the GSTC in our FOCUS ON piece below.
The GSTC says the launch of the GSTC-Certified Hotels Directory responds to growing demand for verified information on sustainable accommodations.
Travellers can explore more than 2,000 hotels on the directory and see the verified sustainability information by entering a hotel’s unique GSTC certification code into the system.
This then provides direct access to details about the certification status, including the certifying body and date of certification.
Photo by Sasha Kaunas on Unsplash