Good practice destination Balbius Travel (TR)

Contributeur Tina Hedi Zakonjsek
pays Turkey
Mots-clés
  • Attraction protection
  • Destinations-in-Europe
  • Europe
  • Low-impact transportation
  • Supporting local entrepreneurs and fair trade
  • Tourism awareness and education
Date de sortie: 21/12/2014
Type de milieu indéterminé
Sujets
  • Natural Heritage & Biodiversity
  • Travel, Transport & Mobility
GSTC Criteria for Destinations
  • B6 Property and user rights
  • C1 Protection of cultural assets
  • D.12. Low-impact transportation
Marketplace category Certified Green: Destinations Certified Green: Destinations
Type (traduire par un nom) Best Practice Destination (Best Practice Destination)
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Items

Description

1. WHO

Key people and organisations (initiator, leader, partners)

Company: Balbius Travel

Initiator & leader : Huseyin Z. Usta

Key Figures (Turkey)

Surface

Inhabitants

Tourism arrivals

Tourism nights

783,562

 

75.6

 

Turkish: 15.7

foreign: 20.5

Total : 36.2

Turkish: 30.3

foreign: 90.8

Total :121.1

2. WHY

Reason for taking the good practice action

Tourism brings in revenue, provides employment and helps peoples to know about each other. But it also has negative impact on the environment, if not carefully regulated, and local culture. Balbius Travel endeavors to minimize those negative effects in its business activities following the principles of eco-tourism and sustainable tourism.

Issues and challenge

● In many beautiful places like lake Egirdir in Isparta province there is no accommodation that has any traditional or historic character.

● Lack of environmental regulations or control mechanism that results in pollution in some shores, rivers and lakes.

3. HOW

Methods /steps / tools used (to develop the good practice)

● Be instructive to service providers such as drivers, hotel managers, etc. in the use of their vehicles, properties for a healtier environment.

● Plan activities, environmentally friendly, introductory for local culture and history and contributory to local economies.

● Use snug hotels of local or historic character. This may also be an incentive to the others to build similar accommodations.

● Use restaurants that serve local dishes in high quality. This also has incentive stimulation.

● Train guides about environmental issues.

4. RESULT

Specific/measurable results, benefits

The facilities that accommodate eco tourism are slowly increasing in Turkey.

This is a result of the demands coming from domestic and foreign travellers and travel companies that offer these facilities.

Recognitions (e.g. awards)

Balbius Travel is operating family trips of Thomson family Adventures in Turkey and one of these trips - Smithsonian Family Adventure to Turkey - was named “50 Tours of a Lifetime” by National Geographic Traveller Magazine in 2013. The family trips are part of our eco-tourism activities.

5. REFLECTION

Lessons learned

Service providers can only be brought to a desired level if they are convinced that they can also earn the same or even more without ruining their environment.

Challenges met

Even if our impact on the service providers is little, we see some promising results from our efforts in environmental matters.

Critical success factors

 Education is primarily important to increase environmental awareness and gain aesthetic values. Unless public pressure is put into effect, politicians do not spare time and effort to formulate proper regulations and control mechanism.

6. MORE 

web-references, documents

http://www.balbiustravel.com