Destination Certification

Sherbrooke, Quebec – A GreenStep Certified Destination

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Sustainable Tourism Certification for Destinations 

If certification is your ultimate goal, get in touch and we can discuss the steps, process and timelines involved. We’ve certified dozens of destinations and are here to support you through the entire process.

Please note that entering the certification process does not guarantee certification. A minimum standard of performance is required, which ensures the credibility of GreenStep Certifications.

Benefits of Destination Certification

Sustainable Tourism Certification is more than a label, it’s a process. Benefits to certification go beyond a marketing advantage:

  • Establish baselines, improve knowledge and build capacity within your team
  • Understand your baseline performance based on international standards
  • Share your journey and milestones throughout the process with visitors, guests, staff, and stakeholders
  • Remain competitive in an industry where travellers and corporate buyers are seeking more responsible options

“Achieving the GreenStep Sustainable Tourism Destination Certification is an important milestone for our regional destination. Our team has been working closely with GreenStep on a number of important destination stewardship initiatives since 2018, including the development of a Sustainability Charter and action plan and the delivery of several programs for our stakeholders. The Certification is based on rigorous international standards, and we are very proud to be the first destination certified and hope many more will follow suit and contribute in making BC and Canada world leaders in sustainable tourism”

— Kathy Cooper, CEO, Kootenay Rockies Tourism

How it works 

Just six simple steps…

Step one:

Become a member

To become a member, set up an introductory call with our team to start the process (add link to free consult), or join online (add link to e-commerce page). Once we have you set up in our system, We will send your membership agreement, the Sustainable Tourism Program Guidelines Code of Conduct, provide access to our online assessment portal, and schedule your assessment.

Step two:

Certification process kick-off

We’ll schedule a virtual meeting with your destination team to review the process, discuss timelines, and create a custom roadmap for the assessment process.

Step three:

Destination assessment

Your destination team will work through the assessment questions. Depending on how much you are already measuring and monitoring, this process can take days, weeks, or months, but we will help you stay on track based on the timelines we have mapped out in the previous step.

Step four:

Schedule your review call

Once you have completed all of the questions to the best of your ability, you will submit your responses and schedule a series of assessment calls with a GreenStep assessor to review your responses. The calls will last two to four hours and your assessor will review and discuss your responses with you in detail. Depending on the size of the destination and questions that the assessor may have, there may be one or several calls to get through the process.

Step five:

Submit your evidence

After the assessment review you will be asked to submit evidence in order to verify your responses for a selection of the criteria. After all requested evidence has been received and reviewed, your assessor will finalize your assessment report.

Step six:

Achieve certification

Your report and sustainability action plan will be sent to you, and another call will be set up to review the results. If you have met the minimum score required, you will achieve certification, and your total score will determine your grading level; bronze, silver, gold, or platinum certification. At this time, we will work with you on a plan to communicate your certification, and to roll out destination-level tools to engage your stakeholders, if you wish.

What you get

Expert guidance

Receive a personal assessment with a sustainability expert who will prepare a report and action plan to guide your sustainability actions. Gain access to tools and resources, a peer network, regular tips and check-ins from our team, and discounts on other services.

Marketing support

We’ll help you spread the word about your certification through our partners, with a blog post, through social media, and with web links to support your SEO. You’ll receive a marketing toolkit with guidance on sharing your achievements on your website, social channels, and marketing materials.

Enhanced credibility

Use your certification to help share your story and why sustainability is important to your destination. Attract like-minded visitors and great customers, demonstrate leadership in the industry, earn win awards, secure new meetings and events, new contracts, build partnerships and guide the sustainable development of your communities. You will receive a digital logo, certificate, and letter of achievement to use on your website and other marketing communications. We’ll send an outdoor sign, window decal, certificate, and the Sustainable Tourism Certified logo for all of your marketing materials, website and more.

Destination certification pricing

Certification fees are based on the population of the destination. Fees for the first year are higher to facilitate the onboarding, coordination, and initial baseline assessment and action plan development. Annual membership and certification maintenance fees for subsequent years are reduced. Destinations must undertake a reassessment every three years to maintain Certification. Choose your size below. For Sustainable Tourism Business Certification pricing, please see our Business page. 

We recommend setting up a call to discuss the pathway to certification and to create a plan with our team before beginning the certification process. Destinations must achieve a minimum score to achieve certification. 

Small
Destination

Population
< 200,000

Starting from

$14,000/yr

$3,500/yr 2+

buy now

Medium
Destination

Population
200,000 to 500,000

contact us

Large
Destination

Population
500,000 to 1.5 million

contact us

Mega
Destination

Population
>1.5 million

contact us

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Destination Certification FAQS

The destination should assign a person responsible for coordination, communications, and moving the project forward, both at the onset and as you continue along the sustainability journey. The estimated time to complete the assessment and evidence submission process will vary based on the size and complexity of the destination and is therefore difficult to estimate. Please reference the table above in the section entitled time commitment expectations for further details. The ultimate end goal of the process is that you will have a committee that meets regularly to discuss and implement the sustainability action plan so that the workload can be distributed.

The Sustainable Tourism Destination Certification program is for any size of tourism destination management and/or marketing organization that promotes or manages a defined geographic area (town, city, region, etc.). While the assessment is intended to measure the overall performance of the destination, it does not include the assessment or certification of any stakeholders, businesses, or entities within the destination. A separate GreenStep Sustainable Tourism assessment and certification program is available for these types of businesses and organizations.

Your organization plays an important role in contributing to the betterment of the communities, sites, and experiences that you offer, manage and promote to visitors as well as ensuring a desirable quality of life for the local residents. As an industry that has already faced challenges from a changing climate and one that contributes to global emissions through travel and tourism activities, destination management organizations are stepping up across the globe to come together and find solutions that can achieve both of the following:

  • Tourism continues to be a vibrant and important economic driver, and;
  • Tourism becomes a force for good, driving positive change across all aspects of sustainability

Going through this certification process will help you to identify specific gaps and opportunities for your destination to improve sustainability practices, while at the same time, getting recognized for the good work you are already doing. More and more, we see that visitors are seeking out destinations and experiences that align with their own values around sustainability.

Becoming certified is just one of many steps in a journey to improving the social, economic, natural, cultural, and environmental sustainability of your destination. The certification process is based on a commitment to build capacity and knowledge around sustainability within the destination, to acquire a baseline measurement of performance, to set goals to improve this performance over time and to fulfill clear and quantifiable objectives, through the implementation of a sustainability action plan.

If the minimum grading requirement of 35% is not met at the onset of the evidence review process, the following steps will take place:

  • The action planning step of the process will be fast tracked to identify actions that, if implemented efficiently and satisfactorily, could improve the score sufficiently to achieve certification.
  • Upon implementation of those actions, your organization would submit evidence, as required, for review and verification. The timeframe for which these actions must take place will be determined by the assessor.
  • Once these actions have been achieved and evidence reviewed, a grading would be determined, and if sufficient, certification would be awarded.
  • We will be scheduling bi-annual check-in calls with you, to see how you are progressing towards achieving your Sustainability Action Plan, and to answer any questions that you might have along the way.
  • Each year, you are encouraged to update your responses to the destination assessment, to measure and monitor your progress and achievements, with the goal of improving your score over time.
  • To maintain certification, the destination must undergo a recertification assessment every three years. Any changes or new initiatives that have occurred since the previous assessment should be identified in the assessment spreadsheet, and evidence provided for each. GreenStep will then perform an evidence review, interim report, additional evidence review, an action plan workshop, and an updated report.

The purpose of the destination assessment and certification program is to enable tourism destinations to assess their sustainability performance, and then support them in identifying opportunities to advance the positive benefits of tourism in their regions while minimizing negative impacts to people, culture, the environment, and the economy; with a goal of ultimately improving overall sustainability performance. All destinations undertaking the Sustainable Tourism assessment and certification program should strive to improve their score each year. Upon recertification every three years, it is expected that there will be at least a 5% improvement in your score.

No, the Sustainability Action Plan is intended to help guide you along your sustainability journey. It will be created in collaboration with your staff (and Destination Sustainability Stakeholder Committee), to help ensure it aligns with your strategic vision for the region. While you do not need to implement all recommended actions, there is an expectation that there is some improvement to your score by your next recertification assessment.