Skyros among top-100 Sustainable Destinations for 2017

The Municipality of the Greek Island of Skyros was among the Sustainable Destinations Top 100 for 2017 which was formally unveiled for the third time on World Tourism Day Septmeber 27th 2017. The awards celebrate the efforts of tourism destinations' responsible and sustainable tourism initiatives.

Skyros has a variety of natural areas of special ecological importance placed under national and international protection. Those areas belong to the Network NATURA 2000, sites of exceptional natural beauty, and have wildlife shelters with many areas designated as important bird (IBAs) and CORINE area. Based on that, Skyros is a unique destination, almost an alternative one, close to Athens Area (only 3 hour away), offering an experience of nature and alternative activities.

Municipality of Skyros has planned a growth strategy for the island with tourism development as first priority. Multiple actions are planned and  many of them are already implemented. All the actions are defined in the approved Business Plan of Municipality of Skyros. In the coming years, Skyros Island is going to become the most important location in the middle aegean sea / sporades related with sustainable tourism and responsible tourism based on its biodiversity, nature, culture and gastronomy, offering an unique list of alternative activities like hiking, sailing, bird watching, food tasting, biking, horse riding and others. Skyros have received a large number of awards in the last few years like Tourism Awards (2015, 2016, 2017), Connect4climate Award, Film4Climate Award 2016, Oikopolis 2017, Environmental Award 2015 & 2016.

About the Sustainable Destinations Top 100 for 2017

This year the top 100 sustainable destinations were assessed with one extra destination - Los Angeles given a special award for making a determined effort  while not yet at the level of the top100.

The list is the result of open calls in newswires, social and business media. Destinations could be nominated by any interested party through a form that was available online.

Nominators had to provide extensive information on the destination and on its efforts to make itself and its stakeholders more sustainable for the benefit of visitors, its local communities and the world. Information had to be provided about the extent the destination complies with the 15 core criteria of the Green Destinations Standard. 155 nominations were received from 57 countries. All nominations were evaluated by experts of the Green Destinations Top 100 Team and by members of the special Top 100 Selection Panel, that included over 60 tourism sustainability experts.

The Top 100 initiative aims to recognise tourism destinations that have worked hard to make a difference and take sustainability seriously. Nevertheless, no destination is fully sustainable. In all selected destinations important issues remain to be solved.

Due to a lack of data, travellers carbon emission data are not currently taken into account in this competition. However, Green Destinations recommend travellers to avoid long haul travels and to compensate their carbon emission in a proper way.

The Award winners were presented to the participants of the Global Green Destinations Gala Dinner, 28 September 2017 in the Museum of the Presidency of the Republic, in Cascais (Palacio da Cidadela de Cascais).

The 2017 Top 100 selection are available in: http://greendestinations.org/2017-top-100

More info: http://greendestinations.org/

Read more here.

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Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Han borg License: CC-BY-SA