After working for a year on joint audits, members of the Sustainable Tourism Certification Network of the Americas can now review a detailed analysis of the initiative designed to help boost auditing efficiency, while helping the network as a whole move toward its goal of establishing an internationally recognized accreditation body.

Colleagues from seven certification initiatives led the effort with 16 of their lead auditors, who visited hotels in Guatemala and Ecuador and evaluated them according to the standards of their certification programs so that each business was audited by every participating program. Following the audits, the Rainforest Alliance, in its role as network secretariat, reviewed the results and made recommendations for good auditing practices.

"This activity was a unique opportunity that provided participants with a complete analysis of their program and their audits, with specific points for each one of them, and recommendations that will help them improve their work," explained Silvia Rioja, the sustainable tourism technical manager of the Rainforest Alliance. Please email her for a detailed analysis of the effort.

Practical Steps for Funding Certification of Tourism Business.

How do I get my business certified? How can I get funding? How can I take advantage of sustainable tourism certification in my marketing efforts? Answers to these questions and more are now readily available, thanks to the Center for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development (CESD), which designed four practical guides to help businesses begin the certification process and improve the programs that award those seals. The guides are the result of Rainforest Alliance commissioned studies conducted by the CESD and the International Ecotourism Society.

The Simple Guide to Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism Certification was written for anyone who wants to know how certification works or begin working toward it. In Practical Steps for Financing the Certification of Tourism Businesses, readers will find information on certification funding. As its title suggests, Practical Steps for Marketing Tourism Certification helps readers to promote certified businesses. And, Financing Certification Programs describes fundraising and financial management strategies.

In May, 450 participants from 70 countries gathered at the Global Ecotourism Conference (GEC07), in Norway and learned about the Sustainable Tourism Certification Network of the Americas in Latin America. The GEC07 was a continuation of the Ecotourism Summit held e five years ago in Quebec, where participants agreed on the need to form certification networks. Five years later, the network boasts members in 25 countries, a basic standard of common certification criteria, a successful marketing strategy and coordinates meetings and workshops to help all of its members.

To celebrate the growth of certification in the Rainforest Alliance, Costa Rica's Tourism Institute and Nature Air, a regional airline, threw a party in May at the annual EXPOTUR tourism conference.

More than 250 tourism business owners and tour operators from around the world attended to party hearty and applaud the sustainable tourism success stories they heard from their Costa Rican colleagues. Over cocktails and bocas, (Costa Ricans' name for tasty small appetizers) Horizontes Nature Tours, Swiss Travel Service and VesaTours described how they became the first group of tour operators to be certified by the country's tourism certification program. Adriana Chaves, of the Villa Blanca hotel noted that the Rainforest Alliance helped the hotel management identify areas where they could operate more sustainably. The hotel is now one of the few that has earned the highest rating awarded by Costa Rica's certification program.

The festivities really took flight when Nature Air was awarded for becoming the world's first airline to go carbon neutral. In 2005 and 2006 the airline compensated for emitting 10,000 tons of carbon by contributing to reforestation programs in Costa Rica's beautiful Osa Peninsula, on the southern Pacific Coast.

The party's over, but celebrating sustainability continues, thanks to support from forward-thinking businesses and savvy travelers.

Sustainable Tourism Certification Network of the Americas member Alianza Verde is developing a pilot project with El Salvador's Ministry of Tourism in response to the country's growing tourism market. Through a series of seminars and training workshops, the certification program has identified hotels, restaurants and tour operators along the "Route of the Flowers" in western El Salvador that will serve as pilot project locations to help Green Deal evaluate the indicators in its certification standard.

Colleagues at Green Globe have released an updated version of their Green Globe Company Standard for Travel & Tourism (V 3.1) that includes some changes in the auditing process. The update includes answers to questions about the requirements for obtaining the seal, which are grouped in six basic areas: policy, benchmarking, compliance, approach, performance and communication.

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This bulletin has been produced with financial support from the Ford Foundation, The Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID/FOMIN) and the Rainforest Alliance.

© 2007 Rainforest Alliance