The tourism sector strongly depends on an intact natural environment but at the same time, contributes to current ecological crises. The Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency) therefore initiated a research project dealing with instruments and measures that could support environmentally sustainable development of the tourism sector. Fresh Thoughts is part of a project consortium consisting of NIT and ZENAT.
To recommend measures and instruments which are suitable for supporting the sustainable development of the tourism sector, in a first step an overview of measures and instruments and their effectiveness will be provided. A gap analysis will point to leverage points which are so far not addressed by any measures and instruments. This will be followed by recommendations on how to advance and disseminate suitable instruments. In the project, a special focus will be on the analysis of certifications and labels for sustainable tourism.
Supporting the sustainable development of the tourism sector is a challenging task due to the interdisciplinary and international character of both tourism and environmental policies and requires the involvement of a broad range of different stakeholders. Stakeholder participation will be ensured through three expert workshops which will be conducted in the course of the project. Fresh Thoughts is involved in all project activities and in particular in organising the workshops.