Understanding the Benefits of Using a Tourism Certification

Tourism certification is a means of providing a standardized, transparent, and comprehensive framework for destinations and tourism businesses to mitigate their environmental impact and carbon footprint. Many tourism establishments worldwide are seeking certifications to track their progress, validate their eco-friendly claims, and enhance the credibility of their sustainability initiatives. As a result, certifications are becoming an essential way to showcase the depth of a business’s commitment to sustainability to guests.

Today, certification covers a broad range of tourism businesses such as campsites, restaurants, tour operators, visitor attractions, golf courses and even whole destinations. The standards and criteria have also become much more comprehensive, covering criteria related to a destinations’ or business’ social, cultural and economic impacts on top of environmental impact.

This article will highlight what you need to know about certification with insights to help guide you in selecting the right certification or verification to meet your business needs.

How does tourism certification work?

Setting environmental business standards often involves certification schemes or labels. Globally recognized labels cover a wide array of products and services, such as organic and Fairtrade for food items, B Corp for businesses, and the star rating system for hotels. While the certification and labeling processes differ by type and industry, they generally involve a voluntary, third-party assessment that verifies compliance with established standards. Following a successful audit, the entity receives a certificate and can display a badge, seal, or label to showcase its sustainability credentials. This certification is usually valid for a specific period, after which recertification and reevaluation are necessary to maintain those credentials.

GSTC’s role in certification

The most effective and reputable certification standards align their criteria with the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria established by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). The GSTC offers a comprehensive framework for destinations, utilized by public policymakers and destination managers, as well as industry-specific criteria for hotels and tour operators.

These criteria are organized into four key pillars:

Managing for Sustainability
Social
Culture and Community
Environment

The GSTC Criteria aim to create a common language for sustainability in tourism while allowing for flexibility and adaptation. This means that the criteria take into account the unique contexts of different destinations and businesses, enabling customization through additional location- or activity-specific standards.

While the GSTC does not directly certify businesses or destinations, it plays a crucial role in accrediting and recognizing certification schemes. This adds an extra layer of legitimacy, ensuring that these schemes adhere to the highest compliance standards. By providing this framework, the GSTC enhances trust in sustainability claims within the tourism industry.

Certification or verification? What is right for you?

Tourism certification and verification differ primarily in purpose and outcomes. Certification provides formal recognition that a business or destination meets specific established standards, often related to sustainability or quality, and involves a thorough assessment process that may include site visits and documentation reviews. In contrast, verification focuses on validating claims made by businesses regarding adherence to certain criteria, without awarding formal certification status. While certification enhances credibility and requires ongoing compliance to maintain recognition, verification serves as a preliminary step to confirm compliance and build accountability in the industry. Both play essential roles in promoting responsible practices within tourism, but differ in their approach as highlighted in the following section.

Certification

Tourism certification is a process that evaluates and recognizes destinations, businesses, or services in the tourism industry for their commitment to sustainability and responsible practices. These certifications typically set standards for environmental, social, and economic performance, providing a framework for organizations to minimize their impact on the environment and promote sustainable tourism.

Pros:

Adherence to industry-recognized GSTC-criteria (a gold standard for certification)
Robust, covering many areas of operation
Supports the development of KPIs
Data indicators relevant and transferable to alternative schemes (if a change down the line is desired)
Backed by data in a way that is transparent and trusted

Cons:

Can be a costly and time consuming (particularly at the beginning stages)
Often requires auditing by certification-specific external experts
Requires sizeable capacity to be dedicated to the initial process and subsequent audits
Requires recertification after a period of time (that varies between certifications)

EarthCheck, Green Key, Travelife, Tourcert, B Corp are examples of certifications that can be used by hotels, resorts, the food and beverage industry, and other tourism establishments to validate sustainability claims.

Verification

Tourism verification assesses and confirms the adherence of tourism businesses or destinations to specific standards or criteria, typically related to sustainability, quality, or responsible practices. Unlike certification, which often involves a formal recognition or award, verification focuses on the evaluation and validation of claims made by businesses.

Pros:

Flexible (and easily customizable)
Low-cost
Requires less capacity compared with certification
Adds value for branding
Can get businesses on the latter for certification (at a later stage)

Cons:

Not as robust as certification
Lack of name recognition (of scheme)
Flexibility (potentially) lessening the impact

Verifications include, but are not limited to, the Blue Standard by Oceanic Global, Good Travel Seal, WTTC Safe Travel Stamp, with others available depending on the nature of your business or specific needs.

Conclusion

Tourism certification plays a key role in promoting sustainable practices within the industry by providing a structured framework for businesses and destinations to assess and enhance their environmental, social, and economic performance.

With a growing array of certification and verification options available, businesses can select one that best suits their capacities and goals. Whether opting for comprehensive certification or more flexible verification, both pathways contribute to the ongoing effort to support responsible tourism practices. By embracing certification, Sharjah’s tourism sector can move closer to achieving sustainability outcomes for their businesses and the destination of Sharjah as a whole.

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Understanding the benefits of using a tourism certification

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