2025 Green Destinations Top 100 Stories Competition
Inspiring responsible tourism leadership and people.
11th edition of the world’s biggest sustainable stories collection to keep celebrating and promoting together inspiring Sustainable Tourism initiatives from all-over-the-world destinations.
About the Top 100
Who is this competition for?
Destinations and Small & Regional DMOs.
Fees
Awarded or Certified destinations in GD affiliated programs €250
High-income destinations € 700
Low and middle-income destinations € 350
*Fee waiver Program for selected destinations
Implementation
Annual Competition
Certificate Validity
1 year
The Green Destinations Top 100 Stories competition has run annually since 2014. This program aims to share and promote destinations and businesses as inspiring examples of Sustainable Tourism to encourage destinations, tour operators, and visitors who want to take part in the sustainable journey of tourism. The competition selects 100 Sustainable Tourism stories through an open call for applications. The stories are judged in terms of effectiveness, innovation and transferability and celebrated at the annual Green Destinations conference. Moreover, the best of these stories will be participating at the ITB conference in Berlin. See more in our Events page
Interested to stay up-to-date regarding the 2025 Top 100 Stories competition? Register your interest here!
You can review the 2025 Top 100 Terms and Conditions here
Why join this competition?
The Green Destinations Top 100 Stories competition provides an excellent first step for destinations looking for recognition of their efforts in Sustainable Tourism. The performance of your destination will be assessed on the GSTC-Recognized Green Destinations Standard V2 core criteria and will be illustrated in a scorecard, for effective and transparent communication with the general public.
Once selected, participants will generate exposure for their destination through the marketing channels of Green Destinations and of course the Top 100 Ceremony at our annual Green Destinations Event. A great opportunity to share your Sustainable Tourism Story and Solution with your stakeholders, clients, and other destinations dealing with similar challenges.
Lastly, selected participants are eligible for a Green Destinations Story Award at the Annual ITB conference in Berlin and gain global exposure and promotion of their efforts for sustainable destination management.
For more information, please review our Call for Applications below:
Who can join?
How to apply? / Timeline
*Destinations already Awarded or Certified under Green Destinations’ Awards and Certification program (ACP) or an affiliate program as Slovenia Green or Ecotourism Australia have already demonstrated sufficient compliance with a GSTC-Recognised Standard. Therefore, after registration these destinations are automatically admitted to the competition.
Registration
Any interested local government, DMO, governmental or institutional stakeholder can start the application on behalf of the destination by completing the Registration form
Sustainability Check
Step 1: Self assesment based on the core sustainability criteria of the Green Destinations Standard
Good Practice Story
Participants who reached a minimum of 60% score on the Sustainability check, are eligible to submit a Good Practice Story in one of the categories
Top 100 list launch - GD2025 Global Conference
Top 100 2025 list launch and Awards Ceremony Awards in September in Montpellier (date TBA)
Green Destinations Story Awards 2025 - ITB
(Date TBA)
Methodology
Step 1. Sustainability Check
Green Destinations has developed the Sustainability Check for non-audited applicants who are committed and have the basic elements of Sustainable Tourism established at their destination or business. This Sustainability Check is performed by the applicant through our sustainability scan. The 1st year applicants need to complete 15 criteria and 2nd year applicants 30 criteria.
A minimum of 60% of the criteria needs to be achieved to be eligible to submit a Good Practice Story. Recognition of performance on the GSTC-Recognized Green Destinations Standard V2 core criteria is illustrated in a scorecard, which will be provided once the Top 100 list is finalized. Participants can use this scorecard to effectively communicate and promote their sustainability efforts.
Step 2. Good Practice Story Submission
If eligible (when the Sustainability Check is passed or the participant is enrolled in the Green Destinations Awards and Certification Program), applicants can submit a Good Practice Story.
What is a Good Practice Story? A good practice story is a well-detailed explanation of the sustainable project that the destination is carrying on. This means that you will write a story about the problem detected, the solution (including all the different actions taken to solve the problem) and the benefits created for the local community and/or the environment, and tourists. Quantitative and qualitative data are other key elements to validate the problem and the solution. The aim is to share knowledge and experience in tackling sustainable tourism challenges in one of the available categories.
A template of the Good Practice Story will be provided to support destinations in this process.
The available categories are:
- Destination Management Solutions
- Nature & Scenery
- Environment & Climate
- Culture & Tradition
- Thriving Communities
- Business & Marketing
The Good Practice Story evaluation criteria:
- Completeness of documentation: The story is backed up with evidence, images and (web)references to which quantitative and qualitative data is provided that demonstrates its impact.
- Sustainability Pillars: The story touches all 3 Sustainability Pillars (Social, Economic and Environmental).
- Level of Innovation: The approach to the sustainable tourism challenge and the solution are innovative and original or an existing solution is implemented innovatively and adapted to the circumstances of the destination.
- Effectiveness: The ability to solve a tourism sustainability problem/challenge by implementing a solution in the destination which benefits a majority or multiple actors.
- Transferability of Innovation: The solutions applied can solve sustainability tourism challenges in other destinations with similar effectiveness. Transferability should be approached in 2 ways: conceptually (the project can be replicated easily) and practically (the sections ‘steps’ and ‘lessons learned’ are described in detail and give other destinations cues for replication).
NB: note that all stories must be related to the tourism sector.
Training and Support
1. Introduction Sessions
For all interested, new and potential Top 100 participants, we will host several Top 100 introduction sessions via ZOOM where the following topics will be discussed:
- General introduction to the Top 100 competition
- The GSTC recognized Green Destinations Standard
- The Sustainability check: What are the Core Criteria, how to perform the Sustainability Scan and how to use the Green Destinations online reporting platform
- Good Practice Story: What is a Good Practice Story and how to identify it.
At the end of the session, we will have a Q&A section for any questions you might still have. If you already have topics you would like to see addressed during this session, feel free to send them to top100@greendestinations.org ahead of the live training session.
Dates:
Each session will be around 60 minutes.
Not able to join any of the sessions?
Do not worry! Contact us at top100@greendestinations.org
Below you will find our first introduction session :
2. Weekly Q&A Support
If you have any questions regarding the Top 100, we provide a weekly Top 100 question and answer session (Q&A). Every Monday, you can meet with us online and ask any questions you might have.
3. Masterclasses and workshops
Registered and paying participants have the option to join the Top 100 Masterclass program. This program offers the chance to learn from experts about selecting and writing a compelling story. The Masterclass sessions will be hosted on Zoom and are exclusively accessible to registered and paid participants of the 2025 Top 100 competition. Interested individuals will receive the registration form for each Masterclass via email with the provided Zoom link.
Masterclass #1 (March 19)
How to write your best Good Practice Story, by Patice Talaue, Green Destinations (register via this link)
Masterclass #2 (April 8)
How to Tell Better Stories, by Alex Crevar (National Geographic) (register via this link)
Workshop #1 (23 April)
How to write your best Good Practice Story (GPS) (register via this link)
Workshop #2 (May 7)
How to tell better stories register via (this link)
4. Additional Application Support
Destinations participating in the 2025 Green Destinations Top 100 Stories Competition can acquire personalized one-on-one supervision and coaching for hands-on support with their Top 100 journey. The Top 100 Application Support helps participants deliver a strong submission to the competition, focusing on both the Sustainability check and the Good Practice Story submission.
What can you expect from the application support?
- 1:1 consultation call and email support to define the story
- Tracking of the progress
- Submission review with feedback
Fee for the additional Top 100 Application Support is 300€.
Visit our support page for more information.
Fee Waiver program
To support destinations from low-and middle income countries and make the competition even more inclusive, Green Destinations (with support from industry partners) offers the opportunity to selected low-and middle income countries to join the competition for free.
If you want to apply for this program, please complete the Fee Waiver request form.
Sponsorship Opportunities
Are you interested in exposure opportunities for your organisation in the Top 100 competition or sponsoring one of the Fee Waiver destinations? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us via top100@greendestinations.org
DOWNLOAD OUR CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
MAIN CONTACTS
Bart Hageman
Top 100 Manager
Emma Magistri
Top 100 Coordinator
PROGRAM PARTNERS
Top 100 Stories 2024
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