ABSTRACT
Certifi cation and ecolabeling have been used in many industries and its application to tourism began in the mid-1990s. There are several certifi cation and labeling schemes related to tourism, and specifi cally sustainable tourism, which will be discussed in this chapter. The terms certifi cation and labeling are often used interchangeably but mean diff erent things. Certifi cation is awarded to businesses or activities that comply with a set of standards and generally requires more than what legal regulations do. Standards can be divided into product standards, refl ecting the appropriate characteristics a product is expected to have, or process standards, refl ecting the appropriate characteristics from products to fi nal distribution (Dodds & Joppe 2009a). Labeling, which occurs through giving an ecolabel, is an award that is given to a business or activity that has signifi cantly better performance compared to the other businesses in its sector. Only the best performers that show exemplary performance, according to the established criteria, receive the ecolabel. As the industry changes and more businesses adopt good practices, the requirements for receiving the ecolabel are raised, so that only the better environmental performance is rewarded (Bien 2007).
