Certified sustainable: Check out these golf hotels
A hotel vacation? Yes – but in a hotel with sustainability standards, please. If you are a golfer, you have plenty of choice: Whether it’s the St. Regis on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, the Terre Blanche Resort in the south of France, the Fairmont St. Andrews or the Öschberghof in Germany. They all have sustainability certification that meets the international sustainability standard of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. This sets the benchmark in the area of sustainable hotels. After all, not every certification is really credible or has enough substance.
A look at the two major international hotel certificates Green Key and GreenSign shows that there are indeed a whole range of well-known golf hotels that comply with the certifications. The Steigenberger El Gouna in Egypt, the two Heritage Resorts in Mauritius or the Ritz Carlton Tenerife Abamo and the Castillo Son Vida are among those listed. This means that guests can be sure that a hotel meets certain criteria in environmental, resource or social management that have been checked by independent bodies.
Green Key, the largest certifier, was founded in Denmark in 1994, was accepted by the GSTC in 2016 and currently lists over 8,300 hotels worldwide with more than 15 beds as certified accommodation. The hotels must comply with a total of 13 criteria that focus on environmental management, resource conservation and further training for employees and guests.
Anyone who wants to be Green Key certified must fulfill numerous mandatory criteria. A small example: at least 75 percent of all showers in the bathrooms must only use nine liters of water per minute and cleaning in the bathrooms and generally in the houses must be completely chemical-free. However, it is difficult for travelers to find their way around the website. Anyone trying to find their way around ends up with an Excel list. Anyone looking for Green Key certified hotels must therefore rely on travel agencies or websites, or the hotels themselves.
GreenSign, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Berlin, is considered the leading sustainability seal for the hotel industry in Europe. GreenSign checks ecological, social and economic aspects of hotel management using an extensive catalog of criteria. Unlike Green Key, it is much easier for customers to find their way around. The 964 certified hotels can be easily sorted according to their level of compliance with the certifications, the CO2 footprint per overnight stay is shown and the various certification areas are simply broken down. The Öschberghof, the German frontrunner, achieves an 80% compliance rate with the criteria.
The Austrian Ecolabel for hotels is the official eco-label of the Republic of Austria and is one of the most renowned sustainability certifications in tourism. It is awarded by the Ministry of the Environment and is based on strict criteria in the areas of energy efficiency, water consumption, waste avoidance, cleaning agents, food procurement and mobility. However, when looking at the list of certified hotels, it becomes clear that as large as the selection of hotels in Austria is in general, it is very quickly reduced when it comes to sustainability. There are just 14 hotels listed in Tyrol and if you want to play one of the Kitzbühel golf courses and stay in a certified hotel, you have exactly one hotel to choose from – the Grand Hotel Tirolia.
In addition, the certificates from GreenGlobe, EarthCheck and Ecostars are also considered to be of high quality. The two French ClubMed resorts in Opio and Vittel with affiliated golf courses are even listed as Platinum members in the highest category by GreenGlobe, as is the Lefay Resort on Lake Garda, which is frequently recommended by golf travelers. The Beachcomber Hotels in Mauritius and the Datai Langkawi in Malaysia, on the other hand, are certified by Earth Check.
This makes it difficult for the individual vacationer to keep an overview. Ideally, tour operators should therefore take care of the selection in advance. At TUI, the world’s largest travel provider, sustainability certification is a prerequisite for all hotel contracts. This also includes Green Life and Biosphere, for example.
“Hotels can make a positive contribution on the ground in destinations if they have effective sustainability management in place,” reads the TUI statement. “We have found that our most sustainably managed hotels are more cost efficient, have better environmental performance and higher customer satisfaction. Between 2015 and 2022, our customers spent more than 54 million vacations in hotels with sustainability certification. In 2022, 7.9 million customers stayed in a hotel certified to a standard recognized by GSTC.”
It is quite possible that many travelers did not consider the issue of sustainability certification when booking. In general, however, TUI, for example, is seeing greater interest in sustainable hotels.
In the area of classic golf providers, the topic is currently still hardly communicated: An analysis of the most important hotel certifications shows that there is a whole range of classic golf hotels that are clearly well positioned in the area of sustainability.
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