For the first time, the meeting and congress destination Tirol, Austria is participating in a benchmarking process, according to the Global Destination Sustainability (GDS) Index. With this, the Convention Bureau Tirol (CBT) and its partners want to launch an initiative for even more sustainability and make this commitment measurable and comparable.
The GDS movement supports destinations in developing further in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These sustainability goals of the U.N. form the basis for the GDS Index, which measures the sustainability of a region on the basis of 69 indicators in four areas—environment, social affairs, destination development and service providers—and makes it comparable with others.
Together with its partners from the event sector, the Convention Bureau Tirol has now also initiated this assessment for Tirol. Specifically, GDS will support Tirol as a convention region in the development of a sustainability strategy that measures the status quo of the services offered by convention centers, conference hotels, event agencies and other event partners. These findings show providers additional optimization opportunities in the area of sustainability.
Furthermore, the awareness of the SDGs and their compliance is to be increased; this applies to the event industry in particular, as well as the regions in general. This should inspire even more (and not only) congress and conference participants from the destination.
The Convention Bureau Tirol has been pushing the development of a sustainable offer for congress participants and business travelers for a long time and is pushing the development of Tirol as a congress destination into a so-called "Green Meeting Destination." Many convention providers in Tirol are already focusing on sustainable events, so-called green meetings, with the Klimabündnis Tirol ("Tirol Climate Alliance"), among others. These initiatives complement numerous other commitments in terms of sustainability.
For example, the Tirol Tourist Board has created a "Sustainability Competence Centre" and, together with the province of Tirol and other partners such as mobility companies, is promoting forward-looking projects, such as Tirol auf Schiene ("Tirol on Rail"), which has been encouraging guests to travel by rail since 2012. Another example is the initiative "CLAR — Clean Alpine Region", which supports Tirolean tourism regions in implementing measures in the areas of climate protection, sustainability and energy and in further developing themselves as climate-friendly regions.
Visit www.convention.tirol.
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