Romania, with its vast areas of outstanding natural beauty and unspoiled countryside areas, offers a variety of sites that no longer exist in other parts of Europe. The newest partner of bookdifferent.com, the Association of Ecotourism in Romania (AER), is an organization that assists in developing a series of ecotourism destinations in Romania, supporting small scale local services and products, keeping tourism standards at the highest level and supporting local and national nature conservation efforts. The AER has established Eco-Romania, their own Ecotourism Certification System, as a tool of supporting nature conservation, good environmental practices and the development of sustainable tourism in Romania.
The Eco-Romania Ecotourism Certification system has adapted the international experience to the Romanian context. The uniqueness of their certification system derives from the fact that they only work with small scale accommodation facilities, mainly eco-lodges and guesthouses of maximum 25 rooms. Besides, Eco-Romania also addresses tours with up to 15 participants and at least one overnight stay to ensure benefits for the local communities and a low impact on sensitive sites. With this cooperation, bookdifferent.com is now able to provide the best residences to travellers who are looking for real experiences of being one with nature.
bookdifferent.com is an innovative green travel data-organization and a hotel booking site with the mission of making the travel sector more sustainable. This site is the first organization in the world that has brought together 14,000 certified hotels and calculated the CO2 emissions of more than 2 million accommodations, making it easier for consumers and businesses alike to travel more sustainably. bookdifferent.com has developed the staygreencheck score to provide a good insight on how the certified hotels perform on the four pillars of sustainability – management, fair & focal, culture friendly, and nature & environment. The staygreencheck benchmark is based on Global Sustainable Tourism Council Hotel Standard supplied by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council GSTC, and has been executed on all 32 eco labels bookdifferent.com cooperates with.
As bookdifferent.com CEO, Lonneke de Kort, highlighted: “bookdifferent.com is very proud of our cooperation with Eco-Romania because they bring a complete country to the next level in terms of sustainable tourism. This allows our European travellers to explore Romania – a yet undiscovered European pearl – instead of flying abroad for their next vacation.”
Andrei Blumer, AER’s president, stated that “Romania has great potential of developing as a green destination in Europe. Our Ecotourism Certification System is a technical tool in order to make the businesses attractive for clients, while being part of the responsible business community.”
Note for editors: This is a joint press release
For further details or images for Eco-Romania – contact Andrei Blumer via andrei.blumer@eco-romania.ro or +40 723 186 016
For further details or images for bookdifferent.com – contact Nienke Serdijn via nienke@bookdifferent.com