Euro Eco 2010 presentation by Herbert Hamele

1. Herbert Hamele
Networking Ecotourism in Europe
Herbert Hamele, Saarbrücken/Germany
ECOTRANS e.V.
European Network for Sustainable Tourism Development
European Ecotourism Conference 2010, Pärnu / Estonia, 27-30 sep 2010

2. Herbert Hamele
Global Challenges & Opportunities
Globalization Agenda 21 The Internet
Local – global A21 value system networked
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

3. Herbert Hamele
Ecotourism in Europe
The “European Ecotourism
Labelling Standard” - EETLS
• Using the “Global Sustainable
Tourism Criteria” as guidance
• 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

4. Herbert Hamele
The DestiNet portal for networking
To give public access to
Sustainable Tourism information
• UN Partnership for Sustainable
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”

5. 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
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

6. 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 free
search 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

7. 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 iFrame
technology 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.

8. 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 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)

9. Herbert Hamele

10. Herbert Hamele
Sustainable Tourism in Latin America
Networking partners link
their initiatives, certified
and recommended
businesses, committed
incoming operators and
www.greentravelbridge.de
other information with the
DestiNet Atlas – asr + gtz project
- the German association of independent travel businesses (asr)
uses DestiNet as central and independent information source for
their „Green Travel Bridge“ project: to recommend certified
hotels, incoming operators or initiatives to German tour operators,
to train their travel agencies to market and sell „green“ packages
to the German consumers and give feedback to the partners in
Latin America.

11. Herbert Hamele
Ecotourism: European Charter Parcs
The 70 national and nature parcs who have
successfully implemented the European Charter for
Sustainable Tourism in protected areas are shown on
DestiNet with .

12. Herbert Hamele
Ecotourism : The European Eco-Destinet project
The Eco-Destinet project uses an own folder on DestiNet
with a public section for dissemination and a restricted
section for internal information and communication.

13. Herbert Hamele
Outlook 2010-2012: The ECOLNET
project to network Ecotourism in Europe
Start: October/ November 2010
Using the EETLS as common value system (Topics)
Using DestiNet as Internet tool for building the European
Ecotourism Network
Inviting stakeholders from local to European and
international 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

14. Herbert Hamele
„In future our main concern will no longer be
whether we can travel to every place on earth.
Our main interest will be whether it is
worthwhile 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