Ecolabelling in tourism: The disconnect between theory and practice

Each year the global tourism market records increasing numbers of international tourist arrivals, drawing attention to the negative impacts on environmental sustainability. As such, the concept of sustainability has become of paramount concern in the tourism sector over the last few decades with an emphasis on "going green" and reducing the environmental footprint associated with this growth of tourism. At the same time, tourists have become increasingly concerned about environmental issues while traveling, forcing tourism providers to carefully plan in a sustainable way. The tourism industry has accepted this trend and has applied new approaches and strategies towards environmental sustainability in their management practices. The greening of tourism began when the first ecolabel, Blue Flag, launched in France in 1985. After two years, the company expanded its activities to other European countries; it became an international ecolabel in 2001. The idea behind ecolabelling is to help tourists make informed decision about their prospective destinations. The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the widespread ecolabelling process in the tourism industry today. Since the first ecolabel in tourism was launched, the number of ecolabels in the tourism sector has rapidly increased in number; today there are more than two hundred distinct ecolabels within the tourism industry. Unfortunately, there is no standardized set of criteria for certification relative to environmental sustainability practices. Given this practical issue within the global tourism industry, this research seeks to review whether the existing scholarship on sustainability and ecolabelling in tourism has informed the actual practice of ecolabel certification