Egypt's Green Star Hotels Achieve Sustainable Status

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC -http://www.gstcouncil.org/) recently announced that Green Star Hotels has achieved 'recognized' certification status. The awarded status gauges its commitment to implement sustainable criteria recognized by the GSTC.

"Achieving this certification is confirmation of Egypt's tourism sector's commitment to long-lasting and credible programs and gives hotels and resorts in the country another reason to work collaboratively towards sustainability" Mauro Marrocu, GSTC's chief executive officer said. "We are looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Green Star Hotel and congratulate them on this very important and meaningful achievement" he added.

Green Star Hotels has committed to using the GSTC Criteria - the first and only global framework for defining a sustainable benchmark - as the reference for universal criteria. By implementing the Green Star Hotel model, hotels in Egypt will work cohesively, joining resources and increasing operational efficiency resulting in the protection of Egypt's natural assets while reducing the impact of each hotel's operations on the environment. Rigorous review and authorization procedures have determined that Green Star Hotel's certification is considered equivalent to the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria; the worldwide minimum requirement for tourism businesses of all size to approach sustainability.

"We have been working hard for seven years to develop, set up and promote the Green Star Hotel Certification Programme as a national standard for the Egyptian tourist accommodation sector based but faced many difficulties and quite political eventful times" said Barbara Fritz, project director of Green Star Hotel. "Now that we are internationally recognized, we think that a first major step is done to develop Egypt´s tourism industry towards more sustainability together with the rest of the international tourism market and the support of GSTC".

To date, 17 standards including Green Star Hotel certification program have received the GSTC-recognized status including:

• Austrian Ecolabel for Tourism (Österreichisches Umweltzeichen)
• Biosphere Responsible Tourism
• Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) for Hotels
• EarthCheck Company Standard
• Eco-Certification Malta
• Ecotourism Australia's Ecotourism Standard
• Ecotourism Australia's Advanced Ecotourism Standard
• Ecotourism Ireland Certification Programme
• European Ecotourism Labeling Standard (EETLS)
• Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA)
• Japan Environmentally Sustainable Accommodations Int'l Standard (ESAIS)
• Rainforest Alliance Standard for Tourism Operations
• Sustainable Tourism Eco-Certification Program (STEP)
• Travelife Standard for Hotels and Accommodations
• Travelife Standard for Tour Operators and Travel Agents
• TourCert Standard for Tour Operators

Each of the GSTC-recognized organizations has taken the first of three steps in establishing the GSTC process. Phases of establishing the global benchmark include recognizing the GSTC standard; evaluation of certification process for transparency by a third party; full GSTC-accreditation (beginning December 2014).

The GSTC will continue to work with standard owners around the world to provide GSTC recognition. All standards are encouraged to apply for GSTC-recognized status and all certification programs to apply for Approval. To learn more about the GSTC process please visit the GSTC website http://www.gstcouncil.org/.

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