Through the Tenerife Convention Bureau, the island presented its projects before an audience of destination representatives and professionals attending a meeting organized recently by the Spain Convention Bureau.
At the meeting that the Spain Convention Bureau recently held in Malaga, the Tenerife Tourism Board presented the green and CSR projects – promoted through the Tenerife Convention Bureau (TFC) – it offers groups choosing the island as a destination for their conventions and congresos, and which have become a benchmark throughout Spain for sustainable practices both in the tourism industry and in business tourism segment.
Carlos Alonso, the 1st vice-chairman and head of tourism of the Island Council, put the accent on the fact that "having been invited to present our work at this meeting acknowledges Tenerife as destination committed to green tourism, including business tourism, which has made us pioneers in this field in Spain." Alonso added that "with the programmes offered by the Tenerife Convention Bureau, we contribute value added to the destination, as well as allowing companies to include, for instance, environmental conservation activities in their travel plans."
Featuring among the CRS projects developed by the TCB, there is one – supported by the Sustainable Ocean Association – geared to recuperating the marine reserve of Adeje by removing long-spined urchins affecting the balance of the area's ecosystem. This experience allows participants to discover, while scuba diving, the marvels of the environment and to collaborate with conservation and research.
Scuba diving in the waters off Tenerife
In collaboration with the Office for Civic Environmental Participation and Voluntary Work, the aim of another of the activities included in the programme – available to national and international companies that decide to organize their conventions and congresses on the island – is to contribute to the environmental conservation by collecting rubbish, recuperating local paths, reforesting, and eradicating invasive alien species or releasing turtles back into the wild, among others. The funds raised from the participation of companies in both initiatives will in turn allow their financing.
Furthermore, the Tenerife Convention Bureau has published a Decalogue about how to organize green congresses on the island, which includes recommendations on the use of local products (wine, water, food), separating and recycling the material they use, policies for reducing the use of paper in the registration process and for handouts, the choice of hotels with policies governing the use of renewable energy sources, water saving, etc.
The meeting organized by the Spain Convention Bureau – a federation of the country's top congress destinations – is the most important of its kind in Spain. At the last edition, there were in region of 160 attendees, including Spanish convention bureau and representatives of the country's leading PCOs, in addition to agencies specializing in corporate travel and industry associations. This forum is geared to analyzing the trends and changing demands of the industry which last year organized over 21,000 meetings throughout Spain, attended by more than 3,000,000 people.
