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A training of trainers package on certification of quality in ecotourism has been produced, which aims to provide practical and flexible training to professionals interested in the EETLS. The training material was the core training material of the training events of of the Seminar on Ecotourism Certificatin and the e-course.

The training package is available in English and can be downloaded here . Translated versions of the publication are available in DE, FI, GR, IT, BG, RO

The training consists of four modules:

Module 1: What is Ecotourism

The objectives of this module are to give the trainee a basic understanding of how ecotourism has been defined and to make the trainee aware of the differences in how ecotourism has been understood, what makes ecotourism important, and what aspects have been included to its realm.

There are three sub-topics:

1. the importance of ecotourism and sustainable tourism

2. the concept of ecotourism

3. elements of ecotourism

Module 2: Certification in Ecotourism and Introduction of the Existing Labels

The objectives of the module are to provide the trainees and overall picture of the ways certification of quality has developed in connection to ecotourism, pay attention to the wide range of quality labels and differences between them and introduce the global initiative for bringing the varied labels together and creating common criteria for sustainable tourism.

The sub-topics are:

1. Certification and accreditation in the context of ecotourism

2. Diversity of tourism and diversity of eco-labels in Europe

3. The market share challenge

4. The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC) Partnership

Module 3: Introduction and implementation of the European Ecotourism Labelling Standard

The objectives of the module are to describe to the trainees how and for what purpose EETLS was created, how it seems to comply to the current certificates and through introducing blueprint of the criteria invite the trainees to test and evaluate it themselves.

The sub-topics are:

1. What does eco-tourism mean for individual tourism service providers and tour operators

2. The European Ecotourism Labelling Standards (EETLS)

3. The EETLS Development4. How do current certificates reflect the principles and criteria of eco-tourism?

Module 4: Training for Ecotourism

The objective of the module is to describe to trainers how training for ecotourism and setting up a label has been planned and organised in three examples.