Our Story
An association founded not around an idea, but around a need that towns and villages across Taiwan were already voicing.
Origins — Responding to a Real Need
The Green Tourism Association of Taiwan was founded on July 30, 2010. It grew out of a simple but urgent observation: the surge in travel demand brings with it more transportation, lodging, and dining — and with that, more energy consumption. Modern travel cannot be avoided, but both the tourism industry and travelers themselves contribute to today’s greenhouse gas emissions. As members of one planet, we all share the responsibility to promote low-carbon, “green” tourism.
From the start, GTAT brought together travel and tourism operators, scholars, and related institutions around one shared goal: encouraging energy-saving and carbon-reduction practices at every stage of travel. The Association set out to become a green-tourism education platform connecting public and private organizations across Taiwan — combining green travel products, leisure communities, low-carbon activities, and environmental education, while working toward a “Green Footprint” certification for Taiwan’s tourism sector.
Sixteen Promotion Centers now operate across Taiwan, each governed locally and supported by shared research, training, and standards from the Association.
A Cross-Disciplinary Foundation
GTAT’s founding chairman, Ren Pei-yi, was a veteran of Taiwan’s tourism industry and general manager of Yong Jia Travel Service, known for his work bringing South American cultural tourism experience and electric vehicles to Taiwan in order to protect the green-tourism environment of Taiwan’s outlying islands. The Association’s founding members spanned travel and transportation operators, hotels and homestays, agricultural and forestry park operators, energy-conservation and leisure-tourism scholars, education and fitness professionals, and a wide range of public, private, and individual stakeholders in green tourism.
From Environment to Sustainability — Connecting Taiwan to the World
As the times have advanced, “green tourism” has grown beyond environmental concerns alone into a full response to sustainable development and a strong need to connect with international standards. Today the Association’s core mission is to protect and make good use of the ecological environment, pursue equal social opportunity, cherish and promote cultural diversity, and help advance the green economy — in direct alignment with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. GTAT brings together government, industry, academia, and citizens, using leisure travel as a lever to improve both visitors’ quality of life and the long-term sustainability of destinations — helping townships and remote regions move toward lasting, sustainable development.
Scholarly Leadership, Cultural and Sustainable Roots
Today’s chairman, Victor Y.H. Tao, Ph.D., brought the Association from industry roots into the academic world, deepening its grounding in cultural creativity and sustainability research. (See the Leadership page for his full background.)