A STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF QUALMARK ENVIRO CRITERIA ON ECO-RESORTS IN NEW ZEALAND

Abstract

Qualmark is New Zealand’s official tourism quality assurance organisation, ensuring that the numerous tourism operators follow the principles of sustainable tourism and actively promote tourism operators that do so. Such guidelines help ensure that tourism operators promote an authentic experience of local culture and nature; while at the same time ensuring that these resources are protected for the future generations. In this paper we examine a specialised rating system under Qualmark, the Qualmark Enviro, which sets minimum standards in environmental performance, for businesses that wish to be rated as a responsible tourism business. However through comparison studies done on three case studies of eco-accommodations in New Zealand, it seems that the Qualmark Enviro rating is too general and unspecific in its assessment criteria. The current rating allows resorts to simply apply active means of reducing energy consumption or waste production but does not fundamentally address the fact that eco-resorts should be designed to be sustainable and environmentally friendly from the very start. This paper demonstrates how the Qualmark Enviro criteria fares when used to evaluate three different examples of alternative accommodation in New Zealand. Other guidelines and assessment tools developed by similar organisations provide examples on the improvements that Qualmark can adopt. Eventually a “Qualmark Plus” rating is proposed to allow a more holistic assessment of eco resorts and lodges.