Abstract:
This article addresses the theme of crisis management in tourism by adopting a proactive
rather than a reactive perspective. As such, it examines ecolabels as one of the proactive mitigation
mechanisms with the capacity to contribute to the creation of a more sustainable future. Specifically,
ecolabels are examined in the context of New Zealand with the aim of providing a better understanding
of consumer attitudes and levels of awareness. The findings are generated by a questionnaire
survey of international and domestic visitors to Wellington and reveal awareness levels of ecolabels to
be small and ecolabel knowledge to be inherently confused. An in-depth examination of the most
widely represented ecolabel, Green Globe 21, produced similarly sobering results. However, in the
context of previous studies these findings can be regarded as encouraging because the level of awareness
reported by international visitors appears to have increased over the last 2 years. Exploring the
notion of “greenwash” as a potential inhibitor to greater ecolabel uptake, the majority of respondents
report no distrust, thus suggesting that consumer skepticism of ecolabels may be overestimated.
