Costa Navarino Wins At 2014 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards

Stefanos Theodoridis, managing director of TEMES, receiving the Tourism for Tomorrow Award for the “Destination” category. Photo: TEMES

Costa Navarino in Messinia, the Peloponnese region of Greece, won the “Destination Award” at the prestigious 2014 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards that took place on 24 April at the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) annual Global Summit, in Hainan, China.

The Tourism for Tomorrow Awards are organized by the 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.

Costa Navarino was honored in the “Destination” category for putting sustainable tourism into practice through eco practices and by creating geothermal power. Costa Navarino has also created one of the largest olive-tree transplanting program in Europe (as well as 6,000 indigenous trees and 200,000 endemic shrubs).

Olive transplant program.

The Tourism for Tomorrow Award committee noted: “In order to have a vision, it helps to have a captain at the helm, and Costa Navarino had just that. Messinia, in the Peloponnese region of Greece, was the home of Captain Vassilis Constantakopoulos who, following his business prowess in the shipping industry, sought to invest in protecting the land he loved. Although he passed away in 2011, this early environmentalist’s aim to create high end, sustainable tourism facilities in Messinia, lives on today through the company he created, Temes S.A.”

Costa Navarino stood out among nominations from 56 countries that ranged from local destinations to global hotel groups, international airlines, luxury tour operators and small eco-lodges.