Sustainable Tourism Online Course for Industry Professionals
The GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Program (STTP) provides the knowledge and tools needed to help improve sustainability practices in travel and tourism. The training covers the GSTC Criteria, the global baseline standards for sustainability in travel and tourism, and provides best practices for businesses and destinations.
Delivered as a 4-week-long facilitated and interactive training class, the sustainable tourism online course offers a convenient way to improve your sustainability skills in a flexible online learning environment, while at the same time learning alongside GSTC experts and fellow sustainable tourism practitioners.
The course will help you achieve tangible actions that fulfill the globally recognized standard of sustainability best practices.
Course Schedule: June 29 – July 28, 2023
Weekly live webinars scheduled for the following days, from 12:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time, UTC+2).
- Introduction: Thursday, June 29th
- Week 1: Monday, July 3rd and Thursday, July 6th
- Week 2: Monday, July 10th and Thursday, July 13th
- Week 3: Monday, July 17th and Thursday, July 20th
- Week 4: Monday, July 24th and Thursday, July 27th
These live webinars will be recorded and participants will be able to watch the recordings any time during the course period. Although strongly encouraged, attending these sessions live is not mandatory.
For more information on course topics and schedule, see the course syllabus here.
What Other Tourism Professionals Say About This Course
Food for your brain! If sustainable tourism didn’t mean anything to you before, just subscribe to start your own journey towards sustainability whether you’re a traveler, or a stakeholder of the Tourism Industry!
I highly recommend the course to anyone interested to explore or deepen sustainability in tourism. It gives a great overview on all dimensions and how to tackle them hands-on. Course management and content are both at the highest level! Thanks!
This course has been very relevant and provides in-depth knowledge of GSTC criteria for sustainable practices for destinations as well as the travel industry [with] plenty of real life examples and share links to plenty of reading material throughout the course. … As we move forward during these difficult COVID times, learning our lessons on the damage to nature, it becomes all the more important for industry professionals to get trained and step up efforts to embrace sustainability in all aspects of tourism. Hence, I recommend this course to all industry professionals.
I enjoyed being able to learn about up to date and practical examples of sustainable tourism from operators and destinations around the globe.
The GSTC programme, led by highly qualified and experienced facilitators and world class presenters, provides a thorough analysis and an integrated approach to sustainable tourism development. The brilliantly structured course, the live online sessions, discussion fora and extensive reference material gave us all access to much valuable information. In addition, the networking opportunities and rich sharing among the global participants, ourselves mostly ST experts, made for a most enriching and inspiring experience. It is wonderful to be part of a world-wide community of sustainable tourism practitioners, imparting such wisdom and committed to making a positive impact for all. Thank You GSTC for an outstanding programme!
As an adventure travel tour operator, we are focused on doing as much good as possible to every place and community we visit and sustainability is rightly gaining momentum, both with industry professionals and with our customers. Therefore having the knowledge from this course means you can stay ahead of the curve and ensure your efforts are being focused in the right areas. This course has allowed me to gain insights from right across the tourism spectrum, which I otherwise wouldn’t have had access to (not easily anyway!), as well as opening my eyes to just how much difference we can make.
The GSTC training proved to be extremely helpful for me and my small-scale travel agency that I founded only 18 months ago. We definitely still have a long way to go on the road to sustainability but the GSTC training has been a very important step towards it. The training offers very detailed and concrete insights as well as general strategies to work towards a sustainable organisation.”
The overall learning experience was great! The internet platform, videos and resources are are very well explanatory and the weekly live sessions perfectly illustrate all criteria.
This course is fantastic! So well organized, well balanced, and informative! Highly recommended for those that understand sustainable tourism to those just starting their journey. Excellent reviews, speakers, and instructors, very engaging!
I would recommend GSTC training to anyone working in tourism development (communities, states, provinces) as well as the broad spectrum of industries (accommodations, transportation, attractions, etc.) engaged in the tourism “business.” Understanding what it means to build a sustainable tourism environment that is inclusive of all stakeholders is fundamental to the future of destinations and tourism itself.
GSTC seminar helps to open the eyes and to develop a new regard on longevity of tourism and the entire sustainable content. I would advise to every professional body working in tourism to participate to this kind of seminar as soon as possible.
The course was very helpful to gain a deeper insight into sustainability in tourism and also to learn what challenges and realities other tourism professionals around the globe have to deal with.
This course provided me with a thorough understanding of how to implement sustainable travel practices. I will definitely integrate information from this training into my work with travel organizations and destinations to help them achieve short-term progress through a long-term strategy.
The GSTC course was very professional and a great experience. I appreciated the communications via emails on what was next, what to expect. There is a lot of data on this topic and GSTC made if very easy to comprehend and the training is the best I have seen this far. I would highly recommend this course and educational training. I look forward to working very closely with GSTC in the future.
This course has given me an approach to the GSTC Criteria, where the basic and complete structure to move forward on sustainable paths is visualized. The reflections generated through real examples, discussions and available material are key to better internalize what sustainability means. Ideas applicable to our business and our work area appear during the course that contribute positively to one’s reality. I will recommend this course, for its contribution to the objective, honest and constructive understanding of what sustainability is.
The GSTC sustainable tourism course has helped me to consolidate the basis of sustainability opening my mind by teaching me different ways to approach tourism industry and destination from a sustainable point of view. It’s very rich to share ideas with people from all over the world. An excellent organization, I highly recommend it to anyone with curiosity about how to improve in the sustainable tourism industry.
It was a great experience to complete my holistic knowledge of sustainable tourism and to get in contact with people and sustainable projects around the word which share the same values and goals.
This is exceptional to work with a group from all around the world and to share experiences from so many different tourism destinations. While learning more about each GSTC pillar & criteria I was encouraged to immediately apply the evaluation criteria to my own business and to challenge myself into a lot more sustainable actions.
My course facilitator and teacher (Ayako and Antje) went above and beyond to answer our questions and provide us with additional resources. The course content (the GSTC Criteria) was delivered in an understandable and organized way. Learning the GSTC Criteria and how it applies to our own projects, businesses, and destinations is integral to anyone wanting to do any kind of work in the future centered around travel. I appreciated that the course was delivered in an interactive way over Zoom, and not just something we watched on YouTube. For me, being able to interact with fellow students from around the world, was a big plus. Was well worth it, and I highly recommend the course!
EXAM & CERTIFICATE
GSTC Professional Certificate in Sustainable Tourism
By completing this 4-week online course, you will meet the training requirement towards earning the GSTC Professional Certificate in Sustainable Tourism.
Once you complete the course, you will have have the option to take the GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Exam. The exam takes place online, and you will have 2 weeks after the course to submit it. If you pass the exam, you will receive a Professional Certificate in Sustainable Tourism by the GSTC.
The certificate demonstrates your knowledge of sustainable tourism standards and practices.
>> Learn more about GSTC Professional Certificate in Sustainable Tourism
GSTC Trainer
Antje Martins
Antje is currently an Associate Lecturer at the University of Queensland. Prior to joining academia, Antje has worked in tourism and hospitality for more than 15 years across several countries such as Germany, France and Australia. With the aim of helping to minimize the impact of the tourism and hospitality industry on its social, cultural and ecological environment, she focuses on educating and mentoring future industry leaders. To help the industry improve further, Antje has also started her PhD on the topic of sustainable workforce.
Previously she served as the Training and Corporate Project Manager at EarthCheck, the world’s leading scientific certification and advisory group for travel and tourism, as well as managing the EarthCheck Training Academy. Training development and delivery, speaking engagements and workshop facilitation has always been an integral part of her journey, including on-the-job training of new staff, facilitating climate change workshops, speaking at industry conventions and delivering training courses online or face-to-face. She is a Certified Asia Pacific Visitor Economy Expert through the Pacific Asia Tourism Association (PATA).
She serves as a Trainer for the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) and is a member of the GSTC Education and Training Working Group (ETWG).
Presenters & Contributors
REGISTRATION DETAILS
Course Registration Fees
The early-bird registration fees (available through April 28th, 2023*) for this course are:
- US$ 445 per person (Regular)
- US$ 395 per person (GSTC Member**)
After April 28th, 2023:
- US$ 495 per person (Regular)
- US$ 445 per person (GSTC Member)
*Please note that the early-bird deadline is 11:59pm UTC+7.
**For GSTC Organization members, the above member discount is available to all staff members and can be used for an unlimited number of times.
What’s Included
As part of your registration, you will receive training materials to be provided before the course; access to the online training platform; and a Certificate of Completion confirming your attendance in the class.
Please note: The GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Exam fee (US$ 75 per person) is NOT included in the above course registration fee. If you would like to take the exam after the course, you can select the add-on option “Exam & Certificate” when you register. You will also have the option to sign up for the exam during and after the course.
DISCOUNT OPTIONS
Group Discounts
You can sign up multiple people at the same time when registering online. Select the number of people you would like register, and you can enter contact details for each participant on the form.
We also offer a discount for each group purchase of more than 5 seats.
- 5-10 people: US$ 375 per person.
- 11+ people: US$345 per person
If you would like to sign up as a group of 5 and more, please contact us (training@gstcouncil.org) for more details.
Need-Based Discounts
We offer a limited number of need-based discounts to current students and professionals who demonstrate genuine needs. To apply, please submit this application form.
*Can’t make it to this class? STTP online training classes are offered quarterly, in addition to the onsite face-to-face training classes offered throughout the year in various locations around the world. See all upcoming STTP training classes here. |