Every year the Green Destinations Top 100 Stories competition collects sustainable tourism stories and good practices from destinations all over the world to be shared as inspiring examples to others, from tourism professionals to travellers.
By telling their stories, destination management organisations are acknowledged and recognised for the solutions they have implemented in response to challenges and problems to sustainable development they have faced.
With the tourism sector facing very challenging times in the past years, the resiliency and hard work of these destinations to become more responsible should be celebrated.
The 2022 Green Destinations Top 100 Stories list has been published this week during the Green Destinations conference which is taking place in Athens and includes a submission from Visit Inverness Loch Ness (VILN) with the following short story:
“A view from Nessie: Inverness Loch Ness’ Climate Action Plan.”
Popping her head above the waters of Loch Ness, Nessie reached out to Visit Inverness Loch Ness (VILN) about her concerns for the area’s climate.
She mentioned how well VILN had got on with reducing their carbon footprint and how impressed she was with the organisations recent carbon neutral status.
Nessie’s main concern was raising the issue of climate change and tourism within the Inverness Loch Ness destination.
The VILN team decided to help Nessie and found that creating and implementing a Climate Action Plan (CAP) for the destination could be the way forward and would help preserve Nessie’s home for generations.
Submissions were evaluated by the Green Destinations Top 100 Team, country experts and Green Destination Partners, coordinated by Green Destinations.
The Top 100 Committee stresses that selection to the Top 100 list does not imply the destination is sustainable, but that the destination has been pre-selected based on a minimum level of compliance with the core criteria of the Green Destinations Standard and selected to the list based on the assessment of their Good Practice Story.
Commenting on making the shortlist, Bryony Beck, Destination Development Manager at VILN, who is attending the Green Destinations conference and is speaking on the Environment and Climate Panel, said:
“It’s an honour to be included on the Green Destinations Top 100 Stories list and I would like to thank our members and stakeholders for their support in the climate action planning process which required us to collate a lot of data.
“I’m looking forward to meeting other Destination Management Organisations this week at the conference and learning about how they are tackling sustainable tourism and climate change.
“Our inclusion in this list means that we will also be entered into the Green Destination Awards which takes place at ITB Berlin in host country Georgia in 2023.”
The Green Destinations Top 100 Stories competition is held under the auspices of the Top 100 Partnership, with special contributions by: Green Destinations, QualityCoast, Travelife, ITB Berlin, Asian Ecotourism Network, Ecotourism Australia, Global Ecotourism Network, Sustainable First and GLP Films.
This competition is also supported by the Future of Tourism Coalition.
The story A view from Nessie: Inverness Loch Ness’ Climate Action Plan and the whole 2022 Top 100 list is available on the Green Destinations website.
VILN’s journey to Athens will be offset via its partnership with Trees for Life.
