Heping Island Park, managed by the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area Administration, has just received ISO 20121 certification for sustainable event management by the British Standards Institution. The park is the only national-level tourist attraction with the certification in Asia.
ISO 20121 introduces sustainability to event planning and attraction management, and asks the certified organization to be sustainable environmentally, economically, and socially. Both the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and Expo 2015 in Milan adopted such a standard. Huang wei-chieh, the park’s general manager, noted that “we know that tourism is not just about fulfilling visitors’ needs, but to take into account the locals’ opinions and communicate with them. Only when all parties involved can share a consensus for the place’s development, can we say that we’ve caught up with the globally popular trend of ‘sustainable tourism’.”
Heping Island Park not only cares about environmental sustainability, but cultural sustainability as well. In the upcoming winter, events featuring Oikinawa and Hepin Island at once will be held - Heping Island once had Taiwan’s largest Okinawa village. We hope to keep the friendship between Okinawan people and Heping Island residents going.
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