The Hotel Park Ljubljana - the first hotel in Slovenia to be awarded the Travelife eco-label

In keeping with our vision for sustainable tourism development, here at Ljubljana Tourism we strive to increase the number of eco-certified accommodation establishments in Ljubljana and the Central Slovenia region.

We organize workshops aimed at encouraging accommodation providers to implement green practices, improve their offerings in an environmentally friendly way, and obtain eco-labels to achieve international comparability and be listed on booking portals of their choice.

The Hotel Park is currently also in the process of obtaining the Slovenia Green certificate, which will ensure it a place in the Green Scheme for Slovenian Tourism. Certified accommodation establishments are a welcome addition to the city's green offerings, which attract more and more sustainability-aware visitors.

Last year, the Travelife green tourism certification scheme* was entered by seven of Ljubljana's hotels (the Hotel Park Ljubljana, the City Hotel Ljubljana, the Best Western Premier Hotel Slon, the Grand Hotel Union Executive, the Grand Hotel Union Business, the Central Hotel, the Hotel Lev) and the Hostel Celica youth hostel, which are all located in the city centre.

In order to make the whole certification process easier for them, we joined forces with international accommodation assessors and Ljubljana's GoodPlace Association for Sustainable Tourism and organized two workshops for hoteliers. Workshop participants were thoroughly acquainted with the Travelife concept, all the 163 criteria under the Travelife scheme (with a special emphasis on the set of 126 criteria that must be met at the first stage of assessment), the content of each criterion, the key focuses, and the set of evidence required by assessors in relation to each criterion. Workshop participants also received practical advice on how to make changes and were shown best practice case studies.

The end goals of the Travelife certification are the improvement of accommodation providers' services in a way that is friendly to the environment and the local communities, a reduction in costs, and international comparability, which leads to increased demand. By the end of 2016, the year of Ljubljana's tenure as the European Green Capital, the range of the city's sustainable tourism offerings will include eight internationally certified accommodation establishments. 

*Travelife is an international certification scheme aimed at promoting sustainable hotel management and helping its 1,300 member hotels around the world to improve their environmental, social, and economic performance in terms of sustainability and financial return. In order to obtain the Travelife green tourism certificate, the hotels must prove that they meet a set of 163 criteria relating to sustainable management systems, the management of energy and water consumption, employee welfare and human rights protection, collaboration with and support to local communities, and much, much more.