The conference had the attendance of Deputy Director of Ha Noi's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Mr. Mai Tien Dung, representatives of the Hotel Department-VNAT, Environment Police Department - Ministry of Public Security, Viet Nam Tourism Association, the EU Project, MEET-BIS, and representatives of 1-5-star hotels in Ha Noi.

According to Mr. Dung, in the past years, environmental protection activities have been integrated into the overall action plan of the tourism sector, contributing to sustainable and stable tourism development.

Most of hotels in Ha Noi, especially from 3-star to 5-star ones, have suggested tourists to participate in saving energy. On the other hand, many hotels are also interested in installation and use of energy-saving equipments or natural and clean energy sources...

To encourage tourist accommodations to participate in sustainable tourism development, since April 2012, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has issued a set of criteria of the sustainable tourism Green Lotus label to measure and manage environmental protection activities applied for tourist accommodations in Viet Nam.

At the conference, Energy Consultant Specialist of MEET-BIS, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Quang introduced potentials and solutions of using efficient energy and water resources at tourist accommodations.

Sheraton Ha Noi Hotel is one of the hotels which have applied successfully environment protection and energy resources saving. Every year, the hotel saved about $200,000 from saving energy resources such as:  electricity, water and maintenance costs...

The sustainable tourism label of Green Lotus has five levels: from the lowest level with 1 green lotus to the highest level with 5 green lotuses and is conferred on accommodations that make efforts to protect the environment, use natural resources and energy efficiently, preserve the country's heritage, develop the local economy, culture and society, and pursue sustainable tourism development. The number of green lotuses that an accommodation obtains will only depend on the points that it reaches according to the criteria of the sustainable tourism label of green lotus.

Term of certificate of Green Lotus label is 3 year. After 3 years, the tourist accommodations rebuild documents to summit to competent authority for the certification again.

In 2012, the VNAT had issued Green Lotus label for 21 tourist accommodations including 3 hotels in Ha Noi including Hoa Binh Hotel (4 level), Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake and Sheraton Ha Noi Hotel (5 level).

Pham Thanh