Com­fort Inn and Suites To­ba­go has achieved Green Key cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, mark­ing a mile­stone for the two-year-old ho­tel.

At the award cer­e­mo­ny at the hote yes­ter­day, Maria Yip-John, gen­er­al man­ag­er and vice pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, said the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is sig­nif­i­cant for the is­land's ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor.

“To have such an achieve­ment, we do feel re­ward­ed. It’s very emo­tion­al for our team. The past year has been a tough year for us be­cause it in­clud­ed a lot of hard work to­wards this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion,” said Yip-John.

She said this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has caused the ho­tel to re­con­sid­er the way it does busi­ness through an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly ap­proach.

“This is one way we can build a bet­ter is­land. We can im­prove our com­mu­ni­ties and im­prove our op­er­a­tions.”

Mean­while, Willard Har­ris, di­rec­tor at Green T&T, said that this recog­ni­tion, the first for a large ho­tel in To­ba­go, demon­strates the ho­tel's com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able op­er­a­tions. Com­fort Inn, which has 74 rooms, opened in Au­gust 2022.

“The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Com­fort Inn in To­ba­go rep­re­sents our first large ho­tel in To­ba­go to re­ceive Green Key sta­tus, which is very sig­nif­i­cant. It high­lights the ho­tel’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able op­er­a­tions and sets an ex­am­ple for oth­ers. You are a leader here.”

Har­ris said this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sets an ex­am­ple for the re­gion­al and glob­al tourism sec­tors, of­fers cost-sav­ings ben­e­fits, and en­hances the is­land’s ap­peal to eco-con­scious trav­el­ers.

“Ob­tain­ing the Green Key cer­ti­fi­ca­tion not on­ly en­hances the ho­tel's rep­u­ta­tion, but it is al­so comes along­side with in­creas­ing guest pref­er­ence for sus­tain­abil­i­ty, while en­sur­ing high op­er­a­tion stan­dards.”

Com­fort Inn and Suites To­ba­go is now among the eight prop­er­ties, which in­cludes the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, across the coun­try to re­ceive the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

It al­so joins 5,900 es­tab­lish­ments, in over 70 coun­tries glob­al­ly in shar­ing in the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able sta­tus.

Ac­cord­ing to greenkey.glob­al, the Green Key cer­tifi­cate is the lead­ing stan­dard for ex­cel­lence in the field of en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and sus­tain­able op­er­a­tion with­in the tourism in­dus­try.

The cer­tifi­cate rep­re­sents a com­mit­ment by busi­ness­es that their premis­es ad­here to the strict cri­te­ria set by the Foun­da­tion for En­vi­ron­men­tal Ed­u­ca­tion. A Green Key as­sures guests that, by choos­ing to stay with a Green Key es­tab­lish­ment, they are help­ing make a dif­fer­ence for the en­vi­ron­ment.