The Star Awards are the Sustainable Tourism Business Awards, meant to recognise the efforts of busineses towards creating Sustainable Tourism.

Pensión Candelaria – talking the talk!

Travel notes, Pensión Candelaria

The International Jury awarded the accommodation Pensión Candelaria from La Gomera in the ‘Communicating the values of my Park and Business’ Category. Despite being a small company, they are very active leading, cooperating and communicating about actions and projects linked to environmental problems on the island. This ranges from fires, reforestation, carbon footprint compensation to beach cleaning. 

Pensión Candelaria is our second winner from the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in La Gomera. The staff puts great care into promoting the natural values of the area to their visitors, particular to German tourists.

Through the Facebook group “La Gomera Insider – Inselnachrichten”, the Director of Candelaria, Carol Gewetzki, sends out information of interest related to the island, Valle Gran Rey and the Garajonay National Park. Through the project “Travel Notes: Stories and Legends”, Carol also compiled information of each of the municipalities of the area in a travel notebook format. In these little books, the joint history is told to allow tourists to get to know the area. Furthermore, she designed a guide on the National Park Garajonay with little known places and information about the Park.

Plantation activities

However, the Pensión Candelaria does not just tell the story of the area, they also help maintain it! The staff are active collaborators in the Plántate project. This participatory project promotes the reforestation of thermophilic forests in La Gomera. They also offer customers the possibility to offset their carbon footprint locally, either through participating in the plantation efforts, or by giving a direct financial contribution to the project. Furthermore, the staff actively promotes other sustainability activities like beach cleaning to its guests and travellers, mainly those who speak German.

They frequently communicate with staff from the National Park and the accommodation actively promotes them by making all the brochures and maps available to its customers. To further their sustainability efforts, Candelaria actively promotes walking routes that can be reached from the accommodation, to reduce the usage of private vehicles.

Congratulations on these great achievements!