Glasgow Becomes First Convention Bureau to Receive Green Tourism Award

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14th Sep, 2017
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Glasgow Convention Bureau has become the first ever convention bureau to win a Green Tourism Award, the world’s largest certification programme of its kind.

The go to standard for sustainable tourism, Green Tourism assesses businesses on their green credentials with Glasgow Convention Bureau awarded a ‘Silver’ grading for demonstrating a progressive approach and commitment to sustainability – the first convention bureau to receive such an award.

This announcement follows on from the launch of Glasgow Convention Bureau’s People Make Glasgow Greener campaign which aims to build on the city’s position as the seventh most sustainable conference destination in the world and the only UK city to be included in the Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS – Index). 

On the back of the award, Aileen Crawford, Head of Conventions at Glasgow Convention Bureau, made a further commitment to encourage Glasgow tourism businesses to develop their green credentials, “Glasgow is a working towards becoming one of Europe’s most sustainable cities by 2020 and a world-leading centre for sustainable policy, innovation and action.  As the city’s ‘one stop shop’ for UK and international conference organisers, our new Green Tourism Award is an important accolade to add to the city’s credentials as a world-leader in sustainable business tourism.

One of the key components of our People Make Glasgow Greener campaign was the creation of a Sustainability Toolkit identifying green hotels, restaurants and services across the city which would be of interest to conference organisers. This has been well received by our clients as it simplifies the process of organising a ‘green meeting’ and highlights organisations who hold third party sustainability accreditations. We’re now working more closely with our partners to encourage more tourism businesses to develop their sustainability credentials and find out more about certification schemes like Green Tourism who offer a wide range of support to businesses of all shapes and sizes.”

Glasgow has a growing reputation for business and academic excellence in the energy, sustainability and low carbon industries and as a result, is attracting an increasing number of conferences in these fields.

By the end of 2018, Glasgow will have hosted 20 energy, sustainability and low carbon industry-related conferences over a 24 month period; delivering nearly 60,000 delegate days and boosting the city’s economy by more than £23 million.

Andrea Nicholas, Managing Director of Green Tourism, commented, “This is a fantastic achievement for this progressive Convention Bureau which is setting the standard for other organisations of this type across the UK. We found that highly-sustainability businesses are more likely to excel in areas of customer service as well as demonstrate significant savings resulting from reduced energy consumption. This is a great opportunity for Glasgow businesses to benefit from getting involved in this green movement.”

conventions.peoplemakeglasgow.com

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