FTT MEDIA RELEASE - SEPTEMBER 2013 ON WORLD TOURISM DAY - FTT ANNOUNCES THE UPSCALING OF ITS PROGRAMME 27 September 2013 Fair Trade Tourism (FTT), which began as a research project of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2001, was established as a South African non-profit company in 2004. Its main activities – in addition to operating the world’s first and still only Fair Trade Tourism certification programme – are awareness raising, advocacy, networking and capacity building in support of sustainable tourism. For the past decade FTT has operated a certification programme for tourism businesses based on the principles of Fair Trade. Its criteria focus on the “triple bottom line” of people, profit and planet. FTT-certified businesses are able to display the FTT label – indicating to the discerning traveller that the business ensures that the people whose land and labour contribute to the operation actually reap the benefits therefrom. In 2012 FTT received a grant from the Swiss government to “scale up Fair Trade Tourism”. FTT has now completed the revision of their certification scheme – to broaden the scope to include other categories of tourism businesses as well as other countries (with the first launch outside South African borders taking place in Madagascar in June 2013) as well as to outsource the certification function to FLO-Cert, the certification body for Fairtrade International (FLO). In keeping with global best practice, the outsourcing to FLO-Cert has now enabled FTT to encourage and support tourism businesses to become certified, without conflict of interest. As a result, in September 2013 FTT created the positions of Business Development Support (BDS) Manager and Sales Manager. The appointment of Thiofhi Ravele and Emilie Hagedoorn to these posts will allow FTT to play a greater role in the transformation of the tourism industry, as they actively engage with role players in and communities affected by tourism. FTT’s standard was the first in Africa and one of the first 11 in the world to be recognised by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. FTT certification has taken the guesswork out of trying to book a sustainable holiday. The tourist doesn’t have to “do their homework” to determine whether or not a businesses’ claims are legitimate or mere greenwashing. All they have to do is look for the FTT label – “the mark of a good holiday”! To learn more and for the full list of FTT-certified tourism businesses go to fairtradetourism.org.za/ **** Ends Contact: Fair Trade Tourism Kathy Bergs General Manager Tel: +27 (0) 12 342 29 45 Email: [email protected] Website: fairtradetourism.org.za Forward this email to a friend. Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe Instantl
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 08:25:24 +0000
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