Sustainable Travel Taiwan

Sustainable Travel Taiwan (STT) is an NGO established in 2010 with the support of Sustainable Travel International (STI). STT has been dedicated to implementing the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Criteria in local communities and destinations, and by local governments and the tourism private sector in the Chinese speaking world. STT has set up an independent platform for people who have a passion for responsible and sustainable tourism to communicate with. STT is a small but diverse group of architects, eco-landscape designers, urban designers, museum specialists, cultural and tourism journalists, tour guides, travel agents, scholars, and more. Through an interdisciplinary interaction, we find solutions and effective ways to implement sustainability practices from the grassroots level as well as from the official governmental level.

Taiwan

Taiwan, an island-state off the shore of China, is about the combined size of Maryland and Delaware, was the 18^thlargest economy in the latest World Trade Organization report (among 131 economies), and its advanced technology industry plays a key role in the global economy. Meanwhile, in terms of health care quality, public education, economic freedom, public transportation, and human development, Taiwan is highly developed. Hopefully, this little introduction will give you some ideas about Taiwan.

The relationship between Taiwan and China is a long and complicated story. But in short, many people living in Taiwan now are in fact the offspring of immigrants from China, and the traditional Chinese culture has had a great influence on Taiwan for centuries. Among all the precious values held by the Taiwanese people, one of the most important is to live in harmony with nature.

The concept of Sustainable Travel, or Sustainable Tourism, is relatively new in Taiwan, but they echo the core values of our traditional culture. Over the past few decades, Taiwan has been blessed with a so-called “Economic Miracle” in terms of our economic growth. However, the pursuit of growth in GDP and the blind embrace of capitalism, has also taken its toll on the natural and social environment of Taiwan. Over the past decade or so, more and more people have awakened and have taken action to re-build sustainable communities and advocate for the importance of environmental protection and preservation of natural resources. The concept of eco-travel has been widely known and accepted with the progress of this “green movement”.

History of Sustainable Travel Taiwan

In 2008, a group of young Taiwanese believed there must be a way to develop economic growth through sustainable travel & tourism, in which the local community and natural environment are not only preserved, but even thrive. Our efforts to promote awareness over the past few years eventually gave birth to Sustainable Travel International Taiwan (STI Taiwan), with the full-support from Sustainable Travel International (STI), a non-profit organization based in Portland, Oregon.

Our main goal is to promote awareness of Sustainable Taiwan. We aim to reach that goal in two ways:

First, we aim to promote the sustainable program to local businesses in the tourism industry in Taiwan.

Second, we aim to promote the public’s awareness of “sustainable tourism” and “responsible travel.”

We believe that consumers/tourists can effect a change in the tourism industry when their travel experience is more enriched and in-depth, and when they learn that by making a conscious choice in selecting their tour operator, transportation, accommodation, and the way they interact with the local people, they are making a positive change in the community they are visiting. It is a choice we encourage everyone to make – because, we are all travelers, traveling on a planet called Earth.

Photo Supports: Special Thanks to Sullivan Chen / Chi-Yuan Cheng/ Institute of Hisotrical Resources Managemet / Monique Chen

Our Team

Members of Sustainable Travel Taiwan are experts in different industries, musuem, landscape architect, urban planning, environment conservation, culture preservation, etc. What made our experts special are their passion of contributing in sustainability work.

Jennifer Lin 林道瑄

Auditor

Jennifer graduated with a B.A. in History in Arts and a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Resource Management from University of Victoria, Canada, as well as a M.F.A. in Architecture Art Conservation from National Taiwan University of Arts. Always wandering in the fields of arts and cultures, she worked at TTT Puppet Center, Dimension Art Center, Shan Puppet Theater, Gold Ecological Park in New Taipei City, and Yo-chang Art Museum of NTUA, organizing and executing various performances and exhibitions. Since 2011, she participated in an overseas volunteer program with ICDF and stationed in Northern Thailand for two and half years. Currently, she works as a researcher at National Quemoy University and involves in numbers of heritage research and management projects. She also took a part in the application of international certification for Taroko Village Hotel, Hualien, planned “Good Travel Project” for Sustainable Travel Taiwan, and passed the auditor qualification of Travelife for Tour Operators and Travel Agents and Green Destinations. In 2018, she passed GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Program, and is working as auditor for Green Destinations now.

FangFang Shih 施方方

Auditor

Fangfang graduated from a Bachelor of Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, Department of Political Science and Geoscience, and a Master of Building and Planning Master Program in NTU. During her studies, she was very interested in the environmental issue and in sustainable development. She published an article in the first Chinese Sustainability Forum in California and exchanged opinions about sustainability with the chinese community in the United States. She worked for a German company ,Siemens, in the headquarters in Munich. Her work oversea made her becoming familiar with various cultures and way of work in international companies. During her stay in Germany, she continued to pay attention to the issues of sustainability and organic agriculture. In 2017, she participated in the GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Course and obtained the certification to become a reserve international certified auditor. Currently, she is working as the Director of International Certification and Auditing for SustainableTravel Taiwan, She is responsible for the exchange and cooperation between Sustainable Travel Taiwan and European organizations working on the sustainable tourism sector. In 2017, she also passed the GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Program exam certification and obtained the Green Destination International Auditor Qualification.

Kuo Chian-ru 郭倩如

Auditor

Graduated from GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF URBAN PLANNING at Chung Hsing University Law School (now National Taipei University), Chian Ru is now the Assistant Vicre President of Progressive Environmental GROUP, and National licenced “Urban Planning Engineering”. She engaged in environmental and urban planning work for more than 20 years, and specifically focus on the landscape degradation and potential assessment, macro-environmental resource and law analysis. And she dedicates herself in merging the local traditional knowledge through community empowerment work in order to implement “the value of glocalizatoin”.

Monique Chen 陳盈潔

Certification Consultant & Coach

Monique Chen graduated from Building and Planning Master Program of National Taiwan University and she is the co-founder and chairwoman of Sustainable Travel Taiwan, specialist as an urban planner and museum operator. She engaged in cultural and environmental preservation works for 20 years. And one of her position job was the first Chief of Operations & Promotion in Gold Ecological Park which was a gold mining village from 18 century, where she was able to explore local history with mine workers and local residents, while developing a more sustainable approach to environmental conservation. Monique is also a experienced coach and consultant of Green Destiantions, Travelife, CU-GSTC and GTS certifications bodies, and is also the first GSTC qualifed trainer in Taiwan.

Cheng Ming Hui 鄭敏慧

Certification Consultant & Coach

Graduated from the Building and Planning Graduated Master Program of National Taiwan University; invested more than 20 years in the field of cultural asset preservation, activation and reuse, and management. For the topic of the integration of cultural assets and tourism, it is often involved in planning work such as near cultural preservation or regional activation. The scope of the concept, therefore, the concept of sustainable travel and responsible travellers has a key influence on urban cultural marketing, rural industrial upgrading, and community building and development. Through the promotion of sustainable attitudes, the possibility of cultural preservation and reuse has become richer and more friendly.

Joanne Chang張怡平

Certification Consultant & Coach

Joanne is the director of Rotation Management Consultant LTD. Travel has become an important part of life for many people. It has also been a focus of social media discussions for many years.While still in school, I came in contact with different types of real estate training programs. This led to an unexpected interest in regional economics and the desire to combine work and travel. What has resulted has been a more than decade-long career in creative design and regional marketing. During this time, I set goals at different stages based on my love of the land. For example, in 2017, I attended a GSTC training course and found similarities between what was presented and my ideas. This led me to search for ways to promote sustainability. Thereafter, I completed Travelife and Green Destination training courses and worked to elevate places, while persisting with efforts to “let the world see the beauty of this land, Taiwan.”

Jennifer Lin 林雅婷

Certification Consultant & Coach

Jennifer is an experienced business development manager with a demonstrated history of working in the leisure, travel, and tourism industry. Passionate about spreading the wonderful idea of Sustainable Tourism. Trilingual in Mandarin, English, and Japanese. Skilled in Contract Negotiations, Sales, Strategic Planning, and Project Management. She believes that some minor changes from mass tourism toward sustainability could make a great impact on the whole tourism industry. Jennifer accomplished both Travelife for Tour Operator&Travel Agents Auditor and Advisor Training and GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Program (STTP) in 2019.

Star Cai 蔡怡芯

Certification Consultant & Coach _GTS

After graduating from the Department of Chinese Musicology at National Taiwan University of Arts, she has been working as a freelencer on the music sector and as a bed and breakfast manager for more than 10 years. She served as the Deputy General Secretary of the New Taipei City B&B Association” and as a project counselor for the legalization of Lianjiang County Government Counseling B&Bs. She attaches a lot of importance of the integration of local cultures into the tourism industry to achieve the development of a sustainable tourism, and thinks that travelers have to discover local arts. She joined Sustainable Travel Taiwan(STT) in 2017 and is currently working as the General Secretary of the STT.

Ming Ling Chen 鄭敏玲

Adsministration & Policy Consultant

Ming Ling graduated from Taipei First Girl High School and National Chung Hsing University, and she won the top qulification in National Advanced Examination in land economic. She had 4 years experience in auditing when working in geopolitical office, and spent 17 years in National University Chung Hsing experinced various types of work, including construction, maintenance and financial work. And the last work before retiring from government was in Yingge Ceramics Museum where she responsible for purchasing, volunteer, guides management and be the chef of operation. Now she is the auditor and Evaluation Committee of national public construction projects.

Carol Tsai 蔡玉菁

Administration and Industry Consultant

Carol has been working in the financial sector for more than ten years. Carol started to climb and hiking for more than 10 years, She participated hiking group with a simple idea of exercising and was gradually attracted by the rich and unique nature of Taiwan. Then, she became a mountain guide with the purpose to promote environmental protection to tourists and promote the code of “Leave No Trace” (LNT). Environmental protection can start from small things. If you can raise everyone’s awareness, then we can have a better world!!

Liyi Huang 黃苙詒

Certification Policy Consultant

Liyi received her Master Degree in Environmental Policy from National Dong- Hwa University, Taiwan. She has working experiences relating to nature resources conservation, ecotourism, and environmental education. A major contribution in her working experiences was developing an innovative whale watching eco-labelling scheme for whale watching industry in Taiwan, which focus on how to minimize the impact of whales and dolphins, to increase the environmental awareness, and to contribute the economic for local society in the whale watching tourism industry. Liyi has a passion on certification in promoting sustainable tourism, between 2018 and 2020, she completed the GSTC Sustainable Tourism Training Program (held by GSTC), Sustainability for Tour operators Advisor and Auditor Training ( held by Travelife), and Excellent Service Mark (ESM)_Royal Mystery Shopper Lead Auditor ( held by BSI Taiwan). Currently, Liyi is responsible for STT’s Travelife for Tour Operators & Travel Agencies certification product.