What exactly is Green Tourism?
Find a Green Tourism Operator in Tasmania Now
Green Tourism is an initiative designed to assist tourism operators to assess and reduce their environmental impact. It is about improving the sustainability of the industry by recognising the environmental impact of tourist activities, and helping operators to reduce their energy use, water use and waste production.
As a Consumer, your choices can have a big impact.
You are an integral part of the Green Tourism process and GreenTourism seeks to raise awareness about how you can reduce your own environmental footprint as you travel. We hope that you will assist businesses to reach their benchmarks and support their efforts by following small requests such as having shorter showers or separating waste from recyclables.
We value the people who want to travel with minimal harmful impact on their environment and we hope that the information on this website helps you to make the choices that will enable you to do this.
Whether you are actively seeking to ‘travel green’ or not, you can be assured that supporting GreenTourism participant businesses will help you keep your environmental impact to a minimum during your stay in Tasmania. By supporting operators who are doing the right thing and taking action, you provide an incentive for other operators to do the same.
Please explore our site and support the operators who are taking real action and making a positive difference to improve our industry’s sustainability.
If you dip into the case studies section you can see what some of our initial 35 operators have achieved already. Many of these are doing well and above best practice for the industry, which is quite an achievement.
By moving towards a more sustainable model and providing businesses with the tools to improve their environmental performance, we are aiming to set an example to other operators and to inspire the shift in thought and practice that is needed to combat Climate Change. The considerable interest shown from other operators during the first year indicates that many are keen to embrace these objectives.
Experience the difference
Also most importantly, and key to the program, is that Green T member operators are committed to still providing the high levels of service, comfort and enjoyment that visitors expect. So, by selecting a Green Tourism operator, it’s a win-win situation for you. And you can feel proud that you are doing your bit to help us all reduce our environmental impact by treading lightly and acting wisely.
Green Tourism Environmental Audit
greenTourism grew out of a 2009 project called Green TEA, which stands for Green Tourism Environmental Audit. It was an initiative undertaken in Southern Tasmania by the Huon Valley Kingborough Tourism Association with partners EC3 Global and with initial funding from the Australian Government. Thirty-five tourism businesses of all sizes opted in to the initial program to assess the environmental impact of their business and to draw up an action plan to make changes that would reduce wastage, water and energy usage, and to improve their environmental credentials.
This project has just completed its first year and is entering an exciting new phase. Green Tourism has improved and expanded upon the GreenTEA project and will make the program more accessible to Tourism businesses around Tasmania and will offer a range of options to suit each business. You can be confident that if a business carries the GreenTourism logo it has at least carried out a health check and created an environmental action plan.
In 2009, Green Tourism participants saved the equivilent greenhouse gas emissions of taking 24 cars off the road for one year
