EcoTourism Training
Ecotourism Ireland’s training and facilitation has emerging from the success of the Greenbox project as Irelands’ first genuine ecotourism destination. This saw the establishment of a set of standards based on sound environmental practices highlighting all that the region and its people has to offer.
What training supports are available to you.
Certification
EcoTourism Ireland can help you achieve Eco-Label Certification, which in turn gives you the opportunity to standing over your Green business policies and operations. This helps avoid greenwashing and gives the consumer the confidence to know that they can rest assured that green means green!
Ecotourism is defined as ‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people’ (The International Ecotourism Society (TIES))
Core to ecotourism and to the EcoTourism Ireland’s philosophy is the concept of environmental sustainability and the EcoTourism Ireland label has been developed with this in mind. A genuine ecotourism travel experience is based on a number of principles that make demands on both ecotourism operators and their guests. Visitors can expect to gain privileged insights and knowledge about the nature and culture of the region they have come to see, and they can also be assured that the people involved in providing their holiday have adopted environmentally sustainable practices. Furthermore, ecotourism operators should be actively contributing to the conservation of their local biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring that steps have been taken to minimise their operations impacts on local nature and culture.
The Ecotourism Ireland Label can be applied to travel and tourism products that are nature based and have an element of interpretation involved. For example, guided wildlife tours, nature based training courses, food trails, archaeology tours, hill walking trips etc. The nature of Ecotourism Education is best delivered to networks or at destination level where a group of businesses decided they wish to develop their products based on this ethos. In many areas the local support of Leader Companies and Fáilte Ireland can be the first step to get some support and resources for delivering cost effective training. A key aspect of training is networking and mentoring for the business.
Additional Supports:
Whether you’ve already been doing this for years, or you are just starting out: EcoTourism Ireland can offer you the support and guidelines to help you. Broadly speaking our services range from the very general tips and advice, training and mentoring, right through to environmental certification and the tools to help you communicate all the good work you have done to your customers.
We are here to help match your needs to the appropriate support.
Tips and Advice
Environmental guidelines available for Festivals and Events, Cruising, Business Tourism, and Equestrian Centres on the If you are just starting to look at energy, water and waste management, there are lots of FREE guides available which provide easy tips to follow to get you started. It’s important to know what no and low cost steps you can take to cut costs in your own business and begin to monitor and measure the amount of resources you use and importantly where and why! Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure!
Assessment and Training
EcoTourism Ireland can offer specialised environmental training in response to demand from the industry is delivered around the country.
Every business is different and struggles with different issues, so there is nothing quite as valuable as having an environmental assessor come to your business and carry out a review of your operations. All recommendations and advice can then be tailored specifically to your requirements and matched with the amount of time and resources you have available.
As well as this, bespoke training programmes are also available to businesses and can be tailored to meet the needs of a group.
Eco-label Certification
Certification allows tourism businesses gain third party recognition for their efforts in environmental management, and communicate achievements in a meaningful way to customers.
Marketing and Communications
Once you’ve done all the hard work it’s important that you communicate this to your customers. EcoTourism Ireland has developed a number of tools to provide you with the tips and confidence to market your green credentials by understanding who to tell, for what purpose, and through which channels. As most of your potential customers probably check out your website before they choose your business, it’s important that your on-line communications are up to scratch and that you are communicating sustainability through your website
Guidelines
Environmental guidelines available for Festivals and Events, Cruising, Business Tourism, and Equestrian Centres and other organisations.
Green Business
EcoToursim Ireland can help you support waste prevention and resource efficiency within the business sector. Tools, tips, and advice are provided on how to reduce waste, conserve energy and save water.
For further information contact:
Ecotourism Ireland
Telephone: 071 9856898 / 087 -6841531
Email [email protected]
Ecotourism Ireland