Can you certify “ecotourism”? Before one can answer that question it is important to consider the following:

First you need to know what certification means and, importantly, that not all kinds of certifications are equal.

Second, you need to verify not only how “ecotourism” is defined, but also what verifiable criteria you can use to check if it meets that definition. 

Third you need to be able to interpret the “jargon” and evaluate what a certain type of certification means and if it is valuable.

1) What is Certification?

Certification is the formal attestation or confirmation of certain characteristics (of an object, person, or organization. These characteristics can be described in a standard.

According to ISO (International Standard Organization) standards are defined as

“…documented agreements containing technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines or definitions, to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose.”

ISO even has a guidelines for writing a standard. However, not everyone uses the ISO process. So here is an overview to better understand what is involved in certification and evaluate.

2) Who Certifies and Who Checks?

Anyone can “certify”, but if and what that means depends on how it is done. There are three levels of certification.

a) The person or organization offering the product or service using an internal “standard”.

This is known as First party certification or self-certification. It can go from simple saying “trust me, I know what I am doing” to a declaration saying that your product, service or professional qualification meets a known standard or required characteristics. For instance, a hotel can say on its website that it is sustainable and list what that entails. You as a customer would have to check (audit) for yourself if this is really true.

b) The person or organization has a user interestin the product or service using an external standard.

This is known as Second Party Certification and in this case the standard or specifications are set by another person or organization, who wants to use a product or a service. For instance a company buying parts from suppliers will set specifications they have to meet. A tourism operator wishing to offer “sustainable tourism” can set rules for its suppliers in the tourism value chain that they judge to be meeting its definition of sustainability.

In this case the company should send a trained representative to verify (audit) if the product or service conforms to its set of criteria (standard) and/or require documents. If the audit is only based on documents and no onsite visits are made, this is also open to fudging.

c) An accredited and independent auditor checks for conformity to an external standard.

This is known as Third Party Certification and involves accreditation.

Accreditation is the formal declaration by a neutral third party that the chosen certification program is administered so it meets the relevant norms or standards of said certification program. This is important as this is a double-check. Not only is the external standard reviewed, but also the process of verifying how a business and/or its products/services conform to the standard is transparent. In this case the auditor is trained and judged competent by a neutral third party to assess if the person, product or service conform to the criteria in the standard.

3) How Can I Evaluate the Standard?

Ideally, standards are the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject matter and who know the needs of the organizations they represent – people such as manufacturers, sellers, buyers, customers, trade associations, users or regulators.

Even if the standard has a good reputation, it is important to see what the criteria are and how these are assessed. Standards can have required criteria and desirable criteria. They can also have a simply pass/fail outcome (you are or are not deemed to be “sustainable” or a points system linked to a certification level (you are “sustainable” enough to very “sustainable”).

Other Info

Organizations like ISO only develop and publish standards, but they do not certify.  ISO has several standards relating to sustainable tourism.

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council – GSTC have developed baseline criteria for Hotels, Operators and Destinations and verify if other standards meet these criteria.

The concept of certification of consumer products is quite old but became urgent over the last 50-60 years when the burgeoning post war economy developed unregulated and new consumer products, household devices, machinery, and processed foods. Marketing of products, both large and small, led to a credibility vacuum where the consumers had no ability to verify that the products they were purchasing were reliable, posed no health risks, or matched what was described on the label.

Urban dwellers were looking for a direct connection between their available food products found in supermarkets and shops with those that came directly from the small local entrepreneurs and farmers. This “natural” or “authentic” purchasing movement became a viable and lucrative business model for many purveyors throughout the industrialized world, particularly in urban areas college towns and cities. The appearance of food cooperatives using bulk and direct purchasing from reliable sources were becoming commonplace.

Based on the insistence by savvy consumers, new businesses emerged whose sole product was based on the results of research and verification of food labeling, ensuring that the claims by the purveyors were evidence driven and true – and thus credible. In the United States there were not only certifying entities such as the USDA, but also magazines and newsletters who claimed to represent only the consumers’ best interests through stringent verification and investigation of ingredients, and the organic agricultural practices and processes. From this thirst for verification magazines such as Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping, and others gained a robust readership earning loyalty from their readers and fortifying their reliability. Purveyors began to tailor their labeling based on a product’s verifiable data through inspections, research and consumer requests and complaints. The concept of reliability, credibility and objectivity became marketing spin words unto themselves.

During and following this period of awareness and growth of the consumer, newer and more sophisticated organizations emerged – often funded by governments – to restrict and limit the use of certain potentially damaging products, as well as creating “certification” bodies to add a “seal of approval”, which also served as an added value for the marketing for these newly verified companies.

Although many have attributed ecotourism to a few pioneers in the 1960s – 1980s, ecotourism was conceptually a movement that merged conservation with tourism to natural and unexploited areas.

In fact, as early as 1939 in Estonia, the idea of ecotourism (“nature and tourism”) were combined, first appearing in the book, Loodushoid Ja Turism, (*see footnote) where the responsibility of tourism purveyors and planners was linked to conservation and planning.

In the 1970s and 1980s the term “ecotourism” became a key indicator and controversial description for responsible adventure with conservation, and it began to be used as a marketing tool to add value for tourism products. There was growing interest in becoming a more transparent and responsible traveler who did not want to feel guilty about their destination choices. Suddenly the tourism marketing machine began to use “ecotourism” as an attractive value until it became ubiquitous and ultimately resulted in the concept of “greenwashing”.

In this period, mostly through the conservation movement, many countries began to evaluate damage done to natural areas and how best to protect their conservation areas using funding derived from tourism, as well as educating the tourist during their visit. Through this, the idea of certified responsible or sustainable tourism is a well-known concept originally created as a form of verifying the reduction of environmental impact for hotels and lodges, but not necessarily only in natural or unexploited areas.

 [*In the spring of 1939, a nursery department was founded by the Director of Nature Preservation and Tourism, for the purposes of raising and developing native species suitable for planting in parks and decorative gardens. 150 species of plants were originally raised and cultivated and subsequently years later, over 500 of these were planted in Kadriog Park.]