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 Introduction
1. that these brands are not particularly representative of product quality as they are often nothing more than general decalogues, devoid of rigorous preset objectives;
2. these brands require very hefty investments to be promoted and therefore recognised by the clientele interested in the tourism sector.
In the same period, as part of company restructuring programmes, many of Cavallino’s businesses had decided to implement the ISO 9002 standard. On the basis of this ISO experience, they recognised the environmental standard ISO 14001 as a serious, scientific, easily identifiable and, above all, absolutely rigorous objective, introduced into a product typicality logic and therefore aimed at promoting the natural and cultural characteristics of the territory of the accommodation structures.
We were immediately faced with the issue of costs and the training of staff from very different sized and diverse cultured firms and decided to involve all the business consultants already working with Cavallino’s outdoor tourism facilities to devise a project integrating training and taking the vision of environmental monitoring and “ongoing improvement” into the individual firms.
THE PHASES OF MANIFESTO DEVELOPMENT: FROM CAVALLINO’S OPEN-AIR TOURISM TO THE VENETO TOURISM SYSTEM
Back in October 1999, 3 firms had already achieved 14001 certification and by June 2000, all the others had succeeded in obtaining the acknowledgement assigned subject to the observance of the Minimum Environmental Requisites established. In June 2000, the consortium already had three golden lions and 11 silver ones; by September 2000 the number of certified firms had risen to 8 and the system had been recognised as a pilot project for sustainable tourism by Veneto Regional Authority’s Department for the Environment, thanks to the support of Regional Councillor Giorgetti and his successor Mr. Renato Chisso;
Upon precise indication by the Regional Department, the initiative developed throughout Cavallino’s coastal area became a regional scheme involving the Garda area around Verona and other seaside towns in the province of Venice.
In September 2000, the initiative became a consortium, with the specific goal of diffusing ISO 14001 certification to the whole of Veneto’s tourism industry. In the meantime, businesses were set the goal of achieving certification according to the EU’s EMAS II regulation. In addition to Cavallino businesses, the Consortium also opened to Veneto’s tourism facilities on the banks of Lake Garda, Chioggia and Bibione, involving hospitality trade companies with a total of 8 million tourism presences a year.
RELATIONS WITH VENETO REGIONAL AUTHORITY
In September 1998, we put our project to Veneto Regional Authority’s Councillor for Tourism, Mr. Pierluigi Bolla, who judged it to be very interesting and supported the start-up activities.
In February 2000, the meeting with the Regional Councillor for the Environment, Mr. Massimo Giorgetti led to the initiative becoming a consortium and spreading to other areas of Veneto.
In September 2000, at Palazzo Balbi, we simultaneously met with the Regional Councillor for Tourism, Mr. Floriano Prà and the Regional Councillor for the Environment, Mr. Renato Chisso, to whom the initiative was illustrated. The meeting resulted in indications from the Councillor for the Environment to extend the system’s method to other tourism and agricultural businesses, in order to cover the territory and its characteristic produce in the most complete manner possible.
On 19th February 2001, Veneto Regional Authority’s Councillor for the Environment, Mr. Renato Chisso, presented the ‘Manifesto’ initiative at the CBR 2001 tourism trade fair in Munich, in a joint press conference with Mr. Jürgen Martin, Head of the international partnerships of Bavaria’s Environment Ministry, to set up environmental agreements between Veneto and Bavaria, focussing on the territories’ private businesses.
This was followed by an epistolary exchange between the two authorities that led to two situations:
the relationship between the two authorities became institutional;
the expansion in the light of the institutional relation to Veneto’s Department of Tourism and Bavaria’s Ministry of Industry;
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
January 2000: first international recognition of the work performed by the Cavallino 2000 Quality-Environment Tourism manifesto; having passed the preliminary national and European rounds, the initiative was also included as the only tourism-related project in the 38 worldwide finalist projects in the ‘Millennium Business Awards for Environmental Achievement, an award assigned to environmental projects connected to economic and productive businesses established by the UN’s Environmental Programme (UNEP), and coordinated by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
27th June 2000: Veneto Regional Authority’s Councillor for the Environment allocates the golden Lion award for environmental tourism to those businesses that had achieved ISO 1400 certification and the Silver Lion to those satisfying 90% of the Minimum Environmental Requisites.
In the 2001 edition of the ADAC Guide to Europe’s outdoor tourism facilities, Germany’s automobile association awarded certification to the system’s intermediate status, assigned by Veneto Regional Authority with the Lion for sustainable tourism, identifying it with a dedicated logo for manifesto participants, in the guidebook.
25th September 2001: testifying to the increasing attention dedicated to Cavallino’s Tourism Manifesto by industry businesses, Venice Chamber of Commerce assigned the first Lions to those businesses in Garda and Chioggia that had decided to undertake this road of development into an environmentally sustainable form of tourism.
26th September 2001: during the 3rd Publitour Forum, Cavallino’s Tourism Manifesto received the Publitour Prize to testify to the importance of the firm and constant commitment in the name of an increasingly receptive evaluation of the environmental resources present within the territory.
2002: within a context of development and confirmation of a form of tourism respectful of the environment, the UN declared the current year “year of environmentally sustainable tourism”.
16th February 2002: coinciding with the presentation of the 2002 ADAC Guidebook, the German Automobile Association awarded Cavallino Tourism Manifesto a prestigious prize as “best environmentally sustainable tourism development initiative 2002”.
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