| With the QualityCoast programme,
the Coastal & Marine Union - EUCC aims to establish a world
wide network of coastal communities that share similar values
on sustainable development, nature and biodiversity, cultural
heritage and identity, and social responsibility, at the
same time maintaining high standards in the quality of their
tourism. QualityCoast has been developed in the EU INTERREG
IIIC project Coastal Practice Network (CoPraNet) by 21 partners
from 11 countries under the lead of the Coastal & Marine
Union – EUCC, one of the largest coastal expert networks
in the world. The QualityCoast programme was the result
of the development of success indicators of Integrated Coastal
Zone Management (ICZM) at local level, in connection to
the implementation of the EU Recommendation for ICZM (2002).
QualityCoast provides new ways of cooperation between coastal
communities. Communities join a network of like-minded communities
and share their experiences and best practices in order
to improve sustainability and social responsibility in tourism.
Their performance in these fields is connected to international
tourism marketing through certification under the supervision
of an independent international jury issuing QualityCoast
Awards.
The importance of QualityCoast for tourism sustainability
People are increasingly interested in sustainability issues,
also when selecting their holiday destination. Within a
few years, tourism eco-labels will be common features in
travel brochures and websites.
Whilst the Blue Flag specifically applies to individual
beaches and marinas and Travelife and the Green Key to accommodations,
QualityCoast is taking efforts towards sustainability into
account in the whole territory of the coastal destination:
towns, small regions and islands.
Participation of local authorities in the QualityCoast
programme improves their awareness performance and achievements
in an international context. The comparison with other QualityCoast
communities provides the community with a good picture of
its strengths and weaknesses. The international assessment
and recommendations by the QualityCoast Jury provide the
local authority with a guidance to be considered in an agenda
for improvement.
The community’s own international tourism marketing can
profit from the status of QualityCoast Destination. Experience
in several countries learns that this will continue to generate
media publicity nationally and internationally. Award winners
can widely disseminate the international QualityCoast brochure
and refer to the QualityCoast public website. Such sustainability
based marketing efforts will increase the “green profile”
of the destination both externally and internally and this
will help mainstreaming sustainability on local policy and
decision making.
Our contacts with European travel agencies and tour operators
have shown that there is serious interest in highlighting
the QualityCoast destinations in their travel brochures
and/or websites. TUI-the Netherlands already started to
mention the QualityCoast awarded destinations in its travel
brochures.
For information on the QualityCoast Awards,
the 2012 QualityCoast Top 100, how to apply, the International
Jury and the marketing programme please see the related
topics on this site.
A compact version of the QualityCoast programme
in 2011-2012 can be downloaded also as a pdf file.
Click
here
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