What Is Green Tourism
Green tourism doesn’t replace existing frameworks — it translates them into something a town, a village, or an indigenous community can actually put into practice.
A Concept That Emerged Gradually
“Green tourism” sits at the intersection of several global frameworks: Sustainable Development (SD), Ecotourism, ISO 26000 (Corporate Social Responsibility), the Green Economy, the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance). Rather than replacing these frameworks, green tourism translates them into something a town, a leisure district, a village, or an indigenous community can actually put into practice.
Why “Green Tourism,” Specifically
Compared to “sustainable tourism,” green tourism is closer to an actionable solution. It goes beyond a narrow, single-track view of “environmental protection.” It helps a place — at the scale of a town, leisure district, village, or tribal community — earn tourism revenue, fulfill its environmental responsibilities as a global citizen, and in doing so maintain a good quality of life and strong cultural traditions.
Tourism as a Relationship Between People and Environment
At its core, travel means leaving one’s everyday environment to experience unfamiliar people, places, and things. That unfamiliarity is what sparks observation and feeling — the main source of enjoyment in travel — and overcoming that unfamiliarity, discovering and understanding new things, is what gives the experience its value. Travel of this kind depends on transportation, lodging, and food and beverage services. Green tourism asks us to stay aware of this interaction between people and environment, to widen the system we consider, and to keep improving it.
No single actor can deliver green tourism alone — it requires systematic collaboration across the global level, governments, industry, and NGOs, communities, and individuals.
A Shared Responsibility Across Sectors
No single actor can deliver green tourism alone. It requires systematic collaboration across the global level, governments and local governments, industry and individual businesses, and NGOs, communities, and individuals — each playing a role, with policies that keep pace with the times and professionals who keep striving to improve.