Costa Navarino Among Finalists For 2014 Tourism for Tomorrow Award

Panorama of Costa Navarino.

View from Navarino Bay.

Costa Navarino in Messinia, the Peloponnese region of Greece, is one of the three finalists in the “Destination” category of the prestigious 2014 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards.

The Tourism for Tomorrow Awards are organized by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and recognize the very best in sustainable tourism worldwide. The awards are among the most coveted in the travel and tourism industry, each year recognizing the most innovative businesses and destinations in sustainable tourism best practices.

2014 Finalist for Destination Award

Olive transplant program.

In evaluating the finalists for the 2014 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, the WTTC made special reference to the environmental practices of Costa Navarino: “Temes (that runs the resort) has proved itself to be a vastly important investment in Mediterranean’s sustainable tourism. For example, they have developed one of the largest photovoltaic facilities in Greece, which not only supplies all of Costa Navarino’s electricity needs but feeds back to the national grid, backed up by a giant geothermal installation. And they have put in place the largest olive-tree transplanting program in Europe, as well as 6,000 indigenous trees and 200,000 endemic shrubs.”

Messinia’s biodiversity needs stretch beyond tree planting however and, always quick to respond, Costa Navarino launched a monitoring and protection program for the loggerhead sea turtle in partnership with the NGO Archelon.

Costa Navarino also contributes to a program in the Gialova Lagoon (a Natura 2000 site) to protect the habitat of the only European population of the African chameleon and they the funded Navarino Environmental Observatory together with Stockholm University and the Academy of Athens, which is dedicated to Mediterranean environmental research. Navarino Natura Hall is one of Costa Navarino’s latest developments: an interactive nature and environment center, it is aimed at educating local schoolchildren on the region’s natural heritage.

Costa Navarino is the only finalist from Greece among nominations from 56 countries that range from local destinations to global hotel groups, international airlines, luxury tour operators and small eco-lodges.

The winners of 2014 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards will be announced at the WTTC’s annual Global Summit, taking place in Hainan, China, 24 April 2014.