Vision on Sustainable Tourism in partnership with the DestiNet Sustainable Tourism Information and Communications Portal, launched a new Sustainable Tourism Award at this year¹s ITB Berlin. The award will initially be based on four territorial areas in Europe: Coastal, Urban, Rural, Protected. In each area interested stakeholders can enter places, products or services in the following categories: * Best Destination (villages, towns, cities and county-level NUTS III-V) * Best Tour Package * Best Carrier (air, rail, ship) * Best Hotel (up to 50 rooms, over 50 rooms) Entries will be judged by their contribution to the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria. A rusty nail award for those enterprises and services who are clearly unsustainable will also be given for each category. DestiNet is jointly administrated by the European Environment Agency (EEA), ECOTRANS (a European network of experts and organisations in the tourism sector), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Tourism Organization (UN WTO). The main objective of DestiNet is to provide a user-friendly environment for the tourism stakeholder community to showcase best practices and share knowledge within DestiNet partnership (EEA, ECOTRANS, UNEP, WTO) and its users. Travelmole¹s VISION on Sustainable Tourism is the global sustainable tourism trade & professional medium. The initial European awards will be presented at next year¹s ITB. The judging panels are currently being assembled and will be announced shortly. Said Valere Tjolle, editor and publisher of Vision on Sustainable Tourism ³We truly feel that these awards will be a real contribution to the sustainable tourism movement. Great tourism initiatives will have a new and unique opportunity to showcase their initiatives to the travel and tourism industry and get due recognition for their work. For further information email: [email protected] Valere Tjolle is editor of the 2010 Sustainable Tourism Report Suite details at:www.travelmole.com/stories/1141006.php
