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The Training of Trainers package has been developed by the ECO-DESTINET partnership based on the ECO-ROUTE project training of trainers package. It consists of 48 pages and is available online from the project website, the ECO-DESTINET learning platform and the e-course in English, Greek, German, Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Finnish.

The training of trainers package is accompanied by a Participants Handbook for the Training Seminar and the E-course Syllabus for the e-course. For the development of the training package the partnership evaluated the ECO-ROUTE training package and discussed the changes that had to be made in order to fit with the needs of the ECO-DESTINET project and its target group. The ECO-DESTINET training of trainers package includes an introductory part regarding the ECO-DESTINET project and the EETLS and a description on the educational approach and training methods.

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.

For each module there is a references section and recommended reading material, case studies and suggestions for assignments and training activities. The training of trainers package draws training resources from the ECO-DESTINET library of training material and the Handbook of ecotourism labelling.