Meet our Star Award winner Trescàlia!
Beth Cobo from Trescàlia receives the Star Awards at the European Parliament in Brussels.
The International Jury awarded the incoming tourism agency Trescàlia in the Contribution to Conservation Category for their very positive commitment to raising environmental awareness among tourists and visitors.
Bringing people up close with nature
Butterfly monitoring
Trescàlia has sustainability at their core. They have been part of the permanent Forum for Sustainable Tourism “Turisme Garrotxa” in the La Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa Nature Park, since its beginnings in 2013. Within the forum, they help promote the “Garrotxa Experience Catalogue” for tourism agencies. This catalogue contains ecotourism proposals, with all ECST accredited companies in the area!
However, they are not just motivating other companies to create sustainable tourism offers – Trescàlia is leading the way! The business has a collaboration agreement with the Catalan Institution of Natural History. In this partnership, together with their customers, Trescàlia is carrying out the monitoring of different flora and fauna like butterflies.
Since 2010 Trescàlia has carried out a monitoring activities of butterflies for 30 weeks per year!
Furthermore, Trescàlia offers multiple-day packages for visitors that all include nature-friendly and volunteer activities. These include a visit to the visitor’s centre of the Natural Park, where they are welcomed by a Park technician; planting local fruits or harvesting them; monitoring bats, birds or other animals; surveying flora or removing invasive species. All activities are always done with a Park technician. This allows visitors to get a deep understanding of the natural area, whilst also actively participating in its conservation.
Getting up close with nature with Trescàlia
Trescàlia also puts in a lot of effort to offer year-round tourism that is well-spread-out throughout the natural area. They avoid promoting highly-frequented places and focus more on less-well known spaces. The guides also explain to the visitors why it is important to have a better spread of tourism to help raise awareness.
All this has resulted in Trescàlia winning the ‘Contribution to Conservation’ Category at the Star Awards. Congratulations!