Overview of the International Rating Systems for Sustainable Tourist Accommodations

Nowadays, it is very important to follow specific design, construction and management criteria for sustainable Tourist Accommodations. This is in light of the increasing importance of the Sustainable Tourism issue and the related initiative created in many parts of the world in order to develop strategies that can minimize impacts on the environment, ecology and social structure of a country, region or area. Green building rating systems are both guidelines for design, construction, operation, management of sustainable projects and important tools for evaluating, measuring and communicating the environmental performance and quality of a building or a built environment. The Laboratory of Building Design of the University of Trento (Italy) is carrying out a study aimed to analyze the main international assessment protocols, which can be applicable to Tourist Accommodations at different scale. Purpose of this study is a comparative analysis which focuses on: the rating systems structure, the key criteria, the certification process, the legislation linked to the national technical regulations and standards, the temporal boundary of the systems, etc. The paper describes the developed comparison methodology and it presents the first results of the research. This study could provide an important base on the way towards a common approach to environmental and energy efficient tourist built environment.