Euromed: Hotels are going green with CBCMed project - Tourism - ANSAMed.it:
Euromed: Hotels are going green with CBCMed project 58% tour operators interested in eco-certified accomodations
The EU-funded project 'ShMILE 2' works to help Mediterranean hotels become environment friendly and promotes sustainable tourism in the Mediterranean.
This CBCMed project undertook a survey whihc involved a sample of 145 tourism operators (mainly travel agencies) located in France, Greece, Italy, Jordan and Tunisia, largely concentrated in France and Jordan.
According to the survey, the interest of travelers to eco-certified accommodations is considered by the 37% of the sample and more than half of interested operators are available to pay a premium price (between 5% and 15% more) for eco-certified accommodations.
The individual travelers interested in a environmentally certified tourist accommodation would expect preferably that the accommodation contributes to the conservation of the environment and to be equipped with green technologies.
Many of the operators belonging to the sample (58%) claim to be interested in organizing or offering environmentally friendly travels.
At this aim the main criteria applied for evaluating the environmental approach of a tourist accommodation are the environmental quality of the destination (eg. presence of protected areas, cycle lanes, blue flag beaches) and the environmental quality of the accommodation (eg. Ecolabel or ISO 14001 certificates, energy and/or water saving equipment, selective waste disposal, refillable soap dispensers, information on the local environment).
ShMILE 2 is coordinated by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Nice Cote d'Azur and brings together the expertise of 11 organisations from 6 different countries: Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Jordan and Tunisia. The ENPI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme 2007/2013 is a multilateral cross-border cooperation programme co-financed by the EU under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument. (ANSAmed)