At the height of the Nanny-State era under the previous government, then Minister of Tourism, Damien O’Connor launched a new environmental criteria, Qualmark Green, at a breakfast for delegates at TRENZ that was held in Rotorua in 2008. At the time the catchphrase "Going for Gold" was used as a gimmicky way to encourage tourism business owners to strive toward Green-Nirvana and achieve Qualmark Gold Enviro-accreditation.
O'Connor proudly stated that New Zealand was “the first country in the world to have a fully integrated quality and environmental accreditation system.”
Somewhere along the way, Qualmark forgot to consult with the the largest accommodation sector that included motels about this new centralist directive and unilaterally inserted a fashionable and politically correct environmental criteria into their quality assessment.
Accommodation businesses are now assessed on their allegiance to environmental and social mantra as part of their quality assessment process. Surprisingly, this contributes towards the property's final quality star grading.
What this means for accommodation providers that wish to protect their star grading is that they are now required to participate in producing a wealth of time wasting greenwash.
A portion of accommodation providers have chosen to ignore this new layer of bureaucracy, while others simply roll-over and accept it. One bemused motelier has written about it.
From time-to-time, we will be faithfully publishing the humorous contribution of a motelier as he grasps the day-to-day realities of conforming to Qualmark's Responsible Tourism rhetoric.
Watch this space...
