China Eco-Adventures

The China National Tourism Association (CNTA) decided 2009 to be “Chinese Ecotourism Year”, encouraging citizens to “be a green traveller and experience eco-civilisation”.
China is fast becoming one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, thus it may be of little surprise that many environmentalists and NGOs are focusing their efforts towards Chinese tourism. The number of eco-lodges and organic farms are increasing, the WWF are training native guides within nature reserves, and the development of scenic areas into such eco-tourism sites will undoubtedly contribute positively to the economic conditions of the rural communities.
While China continues to promote and develop it’s environmentally friendly tourism projects it is yet to develop a system of recognising such environmental credentials, through for example using the global benchmarking system of ‘The Green Globe’.