Proactive crisis management tools : Ecolabel and Green Globe 21 experiences from New Zealand

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.