The figures of this year’s GDS Index provide good reasons to be hopeful and positive about the future of events and travel. Destination management organisations around the world are accelerating the development and implementation of their sustainability strategies. Even leading players are not resting on their laurels and constantly working on their sustainability profile, thus continually raising the bar in the sector.
Tirol in third place in the environmental category
In order to quantify sustainable developments in Tirol, Convention Bureau Tirol also participated in the GDS benchmark in 2022, in which over 70 performance criteria in the areas of environment, social affairs, suppliers and destinations management are assessed.
In its second time participating, Tirol once again landed amongst the top 15 with a total score of 80.9. The Tirolean congress and conference region not only improved its overall score but was even able to secure 3rd place among all 65 participating destinations in the environmental category.
Tourism businesses still have scope for improvement
“In the area of destination management, Tirol improved its score by 5.5 points, which underlines the importance of uniform, sustainable strategies in the state, such as those advocated by the “Tiroler Weg”. We were also able to improve our performance in the category of service providers by 10 points,” emphasises Veronika Schumann, head of the Convention Bureau Tirol. However, we don’t intend to sit on our laurels: “In order to remain at the top of the most sustainable destination rankings in coming years, we must consistently continue our efforts in this regard. There is demand for improvement, for example, in the area of sustainable certifications.” Furthermore, greater attention must be paid in the future to published and implemented sustainability strategies, transparent evaluation procedures and activities with regard to the recycling of resources.
With its ReGenerationNOW sustainability strategy, the Tirolean 2021 conference region has already taken initial steps towards achieving a green meeting future. The comprehensive associated catalogue of measures can be viewed publicly, and the progress or status is updated every 6 months.