Foreword
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Eugenio Yunis, World Tourism Organisation,
Chief, Department of Sustainable Development of Tourism
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Sustainable Tourism:
the value of the VISIT initiative The VISIT initiative has come at the right moment and in the right
place. It concerns Europe, where the large majority of international
and domestic tourist movements take place, and where the consumers
are more aware about the environmental and social implications of
their tourism activities. It is also in Europe where certification
systems and eco-labels applicable to the tourism industry were born,
back in the mid-1980s, and where 15 years later some 60 or so of
these schemes co-exist, sometimes complementing each other, sometimes
competing.
From the very beginning of this initiative the World Tourism Organisation
(WTO) supported and gave advice, when required, to the various certification
schemes that met in early 2001, to consider the possibility of co-ordinating
their efforts under one umbrella. This support was based on the belief,
expressed by the WTO at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development
in 1999, that the proliferation of too many certification schemes
could be counterproductive. Instead, a co-ordinated effort and the
definition of common certification criteria could help to make these
schemes more useful to guide consumers towards the selection of more
sustainable tourism products and services.
VISIT is the result of careful, conscientious and dedicated work
undertaken by numerous people under the able direction of ECEAT
and ECOTRANS. ECOTRANS was also responsible for the inventory and
evaluation of the more than 100 certification schemes world wide,
as part of a WTO-commissioned study undertaken in 2000-2001. The
results of this study were published by the WTO under the title “Voluntary
Initiatives for Sustainable Tourism”.
The WTO will continue to support VISIT, whilst encouraging governments
and the tourism industry to strive for a higher level of sustainability.
Duly conceived, properly managed and suitably co-ordinated eco-labels
and certificates can certainly contribute to make this vibrant industry
more sustainable and to better contribute to the Millennium Development
Goals.
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