There’s a lot of talk about rewarding third-world destinations which are showing  significant committment towards environment conservation and sustainable tourism. But change begins at home, so how about rewarding states in the U.S. which are doing the same? Best place to find out are the respective state tourism bureaus. If they’re not interested in green travel, then that’s the end of that.

Take a look at these 51 state tourism websites (includes Washington D.C.), and if that sounds unappealing, let me make it easy for you. I’m going through all 51 websites with a toothpick, trying to find shades of green, and listed below are my comments about their ‘greeniness’, based on the availability (or lack thereof) of green travel options and eco-friendly travel service provider listings, like green hotels, ecotours, organic restaurants,  and so on.

This is Part 1 of this series, listing the first 10 states in alpabetical order. Stay tuned for the rest, along with one more final summary post at the end which will have rankings for all 51 sites in graded order of greeniness.

Alabama (www.800alabama.com/):- No seperate section for green travel, and a search revealed that the only thing remotely associated with eco-friendliness and listed on the site is a press release about the Moss Rock festival. And to add insult to injury, the website dropped dead while I was still poking around, and refuses to load again.

Alaska (www.travelalaska.com/):- Token nod to ecotourism, with a brief list of things ‘not to do’ in order to be a low impact traveler. Has just 3 businesses listed under ecotourism, and an additonal link to the Alaska Wilderness Recreation Tourism Association (www.awrta.org/). Nice picture of Gov. Sarah Palin, though…

Arizona (www.arizonaguide.com/):- No seperate page for green travel. A search for ’eco friendly’ shows up 4 results, 2 of which are about llamas being eco friendly pack animals for a hike. A search of their hotel listings has 1 eco friendly listing. Just so we’re clear, doesn’t mean that Arizona has only 1 eco-friendly hotel. Just means that the tourism bureau is lame-ass, as far as their committment to green travel is concerned.

Arkansas (www.arkansas.com/):- Nothing on the site. Searches returned either zero or non-relevant links.

California (www.visitcalifornia.com/):- Has a page for eco-awareness and has more listings for eco-friendly attractions and ecotourism oppurtunities than I could possibly document here. Also promotes public transit as an eco-friendly way to move around. Not bad, but they could put in a little more effort to come up with a ‘green trip planner’ or listings of green businesses, or if that sounds like overkill, then at least provide links to the green pages of city tourism websites, like this page for Green San Francisco.

Colorado (www.colorado.com/):- Has a page for ecotourism which is pretty neat and names a few LEED certified museums, resorts and hotels. Plus, there’s an article on environment friendly lodging. Hopefully, they’ll be adding to what they already have.

Connecticut (www.ctvisit.com/):- Nothing on the site. All searches returned zero results.

Delaware (www.visitdelaware.com/):- Nothing on the site. All searches returned either zero results or non-relevant links which had nothing to do with the environment.

Florida (www.visitflorida.com/):- While they don’t a page for green travel per se, a site search revealed that there’s an enormous amount of interest in, and information about, eco-friendly attractions, tours and accomodations in the articles, like this one and this one. Shows that the people in Florida are upto the task, even if the site management hasn’t taken any initiative to collect all the information available onto a single page. One good thing about the site is that all eco-friendly lodgings have an icon of a green house next to the listing, so to be fair, they are working on it.

Georgia (www.exploregeorgia.org/):- Nothing on the site. And there’s no way to search the site, so I had to use Google’s site search facility to see if there’s anything (there’s not). Apparently, this is a new site, so in the interest of accuracy, I checked out their old website - www.georgia.org.  Nothing.

To sum up these 10 states, California is doing good, while Florida already has all the info you need, but they just need to put it together into one page with links and categories.  Colorado is going in the right direction, provided they take the trouble to add to what they have. Alaska’s green page is just a token effort, and the other six states need to have their top tourism management fired.

Continued here - Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Posted on October 12th, 2008 by PLing
Filed under: Sustainable Travel