Published:  14:17 Sunday - February 17, 2013

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has announced the Green Tourism Label standard which will be issued for accommodation facilities, restaurants, rest stops and tourist sites.

Speaking at a press meeting last Thursday, Le Mai Khanh, deputy head of VNAT’s hotel department, said that the standard would serve as a basic guidance for investors and managers of tourist accommodation facilities to make their facilities green, contributing to the environmental protection.

Facilities that make efforts in protecting the environment, use natural resources and energy efficiently, protect heritage sites, and contribute to the local cultural and socioeconomic development can be considered for the green labels.

According to Khanh, the Green Tourism Label does not have binding requirements like the sustainable tourism Green Lotus Label as enterprises are encouraged to behave o­n a voluntary basis.

VNAT has received the evaluation requests from over 30 tourist accommodationfacilities, a small fraction of the total nationwide. However, a positive signal is that such facilities have voluntarily joined programs to reduce the impact o­n the environment and save natural resources, Khanh said.

There are more and more tourist accommodation facilities caring about developing tourism sustainably and responsibly. Many initiatives and solutions to prevent pollution and improve the environmental quality have been launched, with Green Tourism Label as o­ne of the initiatives.

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation is working with VNAT o­n developing criteria for Green Tourism Label which will be applied in the coming time.

VNAT