Workshop on reducing plastic waste in tourism sector

On the morning of May 27, at Trang An Eco-tourism Area, Ninh Binh Provincial Tourism Association coordinated with Vietnam Tourism Association to organize the "Workshop on reducing plastic waste in the tourism sector 2024".

Attending the workshop were leaders of the Department of Tourism; Vietnam Tourism Association; Ninh Binh Tourism Association; Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment); staff and workers at Trang An Eco-tourism Area.

Recently, the provincial tourism industry has paid attention to and facilitated the implementation of the project "Reducing plastic waste in Vietnam's tourism industry". In particular, Trang An Eco-tourism Area is a tourist destination that has implemented solutions to reduce plastic waste in tourism activities.

Typical activities include: replacing plastic bags with paper bags, not using plastic straws but using glass bottled water, recycling plastic bottles into floats, using glass and wooden bowls and chopsticks instead of disposable plastic, regularly cleaning the environment and landscape of tourist sites, collecting and sorting garbage at the source, and disposing of garbage in the right place...

In particular, Trang An Eco-tourism Area focuses on propaganda and training for staff and workers working in the tourism service sector on environmental protection and reducing plastic waste. Environmental protection activities have received positive feedback and impressions from service users.

However, the application and implementation of this project in the tourist area still has some difficulties and limitations such as: high initial investment costs, lack of synchronization between the implementation of plastic waste reduction inside and outside the tourist areas, tourists come from many places so they still bring plastic waste in their travel schedule, some collection points of domestic waste affect the aesthetics of the tourist area...

Workshop on reducing plastic waste in tourism sector in 2024 — Mr. Vu Quoc Tri, General Secretary of Vietnam Tourism Association discussed at the Workshop.

At the workshop, delegates discussed and shared some good applications and models to raise awareness of environmental protection and reduce plastic waste in tourism activities.

Some solutions are proposed such as: focusing on training knowledge and skills for staff and workers to become pioneers and set examples so that each destination will be a typical bright spot in reducing plastic waste, contributing to the goal of developing green and sustainable tourism...

On the part of the Vietnam Tourism Association, the Provincial Tourism Association encourages tourist areas, destinations, and tourism service businesses to pilot zero plastic waste and issue a "Set of criteria for recognizing zero plastic waste businesses", develop an action plan to reduce plastic waste in the tourism industry and apply plastic waste management to tourism businesses.

Lan Anh - Hoang Hiep

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