Westin Resort Costa Navarino Receives Travelife Gold Award

The Westin Resort, Costa Navarino.

The Westin Resort Costa Navarino in the Peloponnese was honored with the Travelife Gold certification plaque during the closing ceremony of the ABTA 2015 Travel Convention on Wednesday.

Jirayr Kececian, Complex General Manager Starwood Hotels, Costa Navarino with ABTA chairman Noel Josephides.

Travelife Gold sustainability certification is awarded to hotels that have proved their efficiency in respecting key social, economic, and environmental issues.

The luxury Costa Navarino resort, which hosted over 500 delegates attending the travel convention during 12-14 October, received the certification plaque in recognition of its achievements in embedding sustainability into its operations.

During the award ceremony, Nikki White, Managing Director, Travelife for Hotels & Accommodations confirmed that Costa Navarino has played a significant role in helping to develop and promote the whole of the Peloponnese region.

The Starwood Hotels and Resorts luxury 5-star property is one of the first hotels to open within the Costa Navarino development in the Peloponnese.

“It has helped drive local investment, infrastructure and visitor numbers at a time when Greece has struggled economically”, Ms White said.

“At the same time Costa Navarino has led the way in terms of supporting local people, local businesses and protecting the local environment.”

Costa Navarino offers Messinian authenticity.

The resort’s social and economic achievements include hiring 70 percent of employees from the local area and buying 60 percent of supplies from local sources.

The resort has helped increase the annual income of local restaurants by 2.35 million euros via Costa Navarino’s visitors.

Its achievements also include creating the Navarino brand and product lines in order to promote the international flair of traditional Messinian food and culture and establishing the Captain Vassilis Foundation to educate local farmers.

Messinian authenticity: Olive harvesting.

In regards to the environment, Costa Navarino has constructed the largest photovoltaic solar energy park in Greece, generating surplus renewable energy, which is supplied back to the national grid. It has developed the biggest geothermal system in Europe with 123km of pipes laid underground and it uses 100 percent renewable water sources (local river runoff and on-site waste water treatment plant) for all irrigation.

During resort construction, 16,000 ancient olive trees and 8,000 other trees were preserved and re-planted.

“Environmental and social responsibility is at the heart of Costa Navarino’s philosophy”, affirmed Jirayr Kececian, Complex General Manager Starwood Hotels, Costa Navarino.

“Being honoured with the Travelife Gold certification, makes all us at The Westin Resort Costa Navarino very proud as this distinction proves that we make the right choice towards positively impacting the community in which we operate, while we are building resilience into our properties.”

The Westin resort, Costa Navarino, was certified following an extensive on-site audit, demonstrating that it met all the criteria associated with the Travel Gold certification.