Greece has adopted Abta’s Travelife scheme as part of its new hotel star-rating system.
Hotels certified by Travelife can improve their ranking in the points-based scheme.
Greece’s new system came into force this month, with hotel classification based on points for meeting technical, operational, quality and service criteria.
Travelife certification counts for 150 points, with extra points available for matching Travelife Gold Award criteria – 100 for Travelife-recognised corporate social responsibility policies, the same for a recognised compliance system and 50 for an employee handbook.
The system also includes mandatory training on environmental issues for staff, which is among the Travelife Gold criteria. Hotels have until December 2017 to comply.
Greece is the second country to recognise Travelife in this way, with Cyprus already incorporating the scheme into its hotel ratings.
Travelife audited 700 hotels in 38 countries against its Gold Award criteria in the 12 months to June, with most audits carried out between June and September.
The scheme has partnered with Ljubljana in Slovenia to certify hotels in preparation for the city’s year as Green Capital of Europe 2016.
Ljubljana won the World Travel & Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow Destination Award this year after hosting Abta’s 2014 Travel Convention.
The Travel Foundation and Travelife joined forces this year for the annual Make Holidays Greener campaign to focus on beach clean-ups. A month of activity saw 115 beaches cleaned and almost 3,000kg of rubbish removed.