Events

Next Train-to-Ecolabel meeting in Amsterdam, 20-22 September 2007

Train to Ecolabel meeting, Nitaure, 10-11 May 2007

From May 10-11, our meeting took place in the "Guest house NITAURES DZIRNAVAS, Vidzeme" a city two hours away from the capital Riga. In this meeting the ongoing progress of the project was discussed, especially the current situation of the project, including open points, the homepage, the dissemination and the translations were discussed (download program). At the end of this very productive meeting, deadlines were agreed upon in order to assure timely execution of all tasks.

Train-to-Ecolabel meeting in Dimaro, 28-29 September 2006

Download meeting program (Word-Document, 56kB).

This meeting took place in the heart of the mountain area around Adamella-Brenta Nationalpark, where we could stay at the camp site Dolomiti Camping Village, which is the first one in Italy who has been awarded with the EU Ecolabel for campsite services.

All partners were requested to emphasize their progress on the last half year’s activities on the Train-to-Ecolabel-project. Co-ordinator Rainer moderated the plenary meeting and focused on project management, cost, reporting and outstanding document. He expressed once again to keep up with the time schedule. Michael Karg presented the ongoing result of the online training tool, Otto Fichtl did the same with the online application pack. Best practice examples were submitted by Eva, who attended the meeting the first time (instead of Herbert Hamele). During the second day Menno discussed how to proceed with the self-test and moderated a work group concerning commercialization, Ernst discussed copyright agreement and marketing items. Rainer embraced the Train-the-Trainer Manual. All partners had to present past dissemination activities and the test of the material and their contributions on the modules. We also could welcome our collegues from Switzerland with Patric Bérod from the Wallis Hotel Association as associated partners.

We were very lucky that the owner of the Camp Site Dolomiti Camping Village took time to present in detail the environmental performance of his location. The Camping is extraordinarily beautiful and clean. This confirms the outstanding efforts devoted to environmental measures carried out by the owner, e.g. modern energy management, waste separation etc. It was a valuable impression to get in-depth knowledge how to implement EU Ecolabel criteria in practice.

Seminar for hoteliers, San Antonio di Mavignola (TN), 29 Sept. 2006

On invitation of the Trentino hoteliers association we could participate in a seminar with local hoteliers from the region of Madonna di Campiglia, a very famous tourist region in Northern Italy.

In order to give the hoteliers, already certified with “Qualità Parco”, a local quality label, the opportunity to know more about the EU Ecolabel and how to apply for it, this seminar was organized parallel to the Leonardo meeting in Dimaro with the presence of TTE-Projectmembers. Mrs. Dagmar Diwok presented a general overview about initiatives regarding environmental performance in hotels. Rainer Stifter used the opportunity to focus on training programmes and presented the first results of the ongoing TTE Leonardo project. The hoteliers declared their interest in the presentations and the TTE-tools.

The following hoteliers participated:

• Hotel Alpina – Fausto Aldrighetti (Madonna di Campiglio)
• Bio Hotel Hermitage – Barbara Maffei (Madonna di Campiglio)
• Albergo alla Posta – Augusto Collini (S. Antonio di Mavignola)
• Hotel Tevini – Fausto Tevini (Frazione Almazzago)
• Hotel Crozzon – Rina Masè (Madonna di Campiglio)
• Maso Mistrin – Alice Collini (S. Antonio di Mavignola)
• Hotel Alexander – Bonetti Alessandro (Molveno)
• Hotel Gianna – Christian Armani (Madonna di Campiglio)

Mrs. Diwok illustrating the initiatives of the Marketing team to the hoteliers	Mr. Stifter explaining details regarding specific training and support initiatives.

Mrs. Diwok with Mr. Aldrighetti, vice president of the Trentino hoteliers association.	Hoteliers from Madonna di Campiglio.

Train-to-Ecolabel on the 1st Estoril conference on tourism, environmental certification and eco-labels, Estoril 16-17 February 2006

More than 110 participants from 12 different countries were gathered in Estoril on February 16-17 during the 1st International Conference on Tourism and Environmental Certification in Portugal. The international conference was organised by Nordeconsult and took place in the Estoril Conference Center. The main objective of the conference was to describe and present different environmental management systems and eco-labels available for the tourism industry, including a number of case studies different tourist enterprises, in order to stimulate the implementation of environmental management systems in the sector as a way to increase competitiveness and sustainability.

The challenging project “Train to Ecolabel” was the first time presented to a wide audience of international experts by Rainer Stifter. At the beginning of his presentation he focused on the Ecolabel in general and explained the ongoing activities in Europe. Then he emphasized the role of Train to Ecolabel as a valuable instrument to support qualification processes in the tourism sector helping optimising environmental processes like energy, water and waste management, which results in reduced operational costs and higher quality. He also pointed out the contribution of “Train to Ecolabel” to enhance skills and job profiles of tourism workers in the accommodation sector.

The participation at the conference enabled to get outstanding contacts to important stakeholders in the field of tourism and environment. Many “train to ecolabel” partners attending the conference utilized the chance to promote the project in this important audience during face-to-face meetings in the break and during lunch and dinner. As a summary, “Train to Ecolabel” used the first chance to present it as an important tool and contribution on the implementation of environmental management systems in tourism. It was also a result that sustainable tourism is important and can be applied and integrated in all types of tourism activities. And environmental certification is one tool to stimulate sustainable tourism but the uptake by the sector is far low.

Train-to-Ecolabel-Meeting in Lisboa, 14.-15. February 2006

First results were in discussion during the second Train-to-Ecolabel-meeting, which took place in Lisboa, at the INETI-institut in Estrada do Paco do Lumiar, from 14-15 February 2006.

Paula Duarte, Director of CENDES, introduced INETI-institute and welcame the participants in Lisboa. Co-ordinator Rainer Stifter could also welcome the collegues from Switzerland, Serge Ballestraz and Patric Bérod, Wallis Hotel Association, who will attend the following Train-to-Ecolabel-Meetings as associated partners.

During two days all partners presented their contributions on the modules as agreed on the first meeting in Vienna 2005. The modules are now co-ordination as follows: Rainer (Energy), Joao (Water), Motti (Chemicals), Dagmar (Waste), Menno (Management).

Besides the activities on the modules, main issues were also the discussion of the current project website and the possible layout of the training site, the ongoing and coming dissemination activities and the commercialisation of the final product.

Herbert Hamele presented the usage of CIRCA Forum – the online tool to store information about existing documents related to the flower (existing training for tourism, EU regulation on the flower). Another new source for information on tourism is the website: http://destinet.ewindows.eu.org