Swiss Travel is the first tourism company to receive the Blue Flag certification with a focus on biodiversity, a new certificate category created in 2021.

To achieve this, we created a training program on wildlife, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) and the National Chamber of Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism (Canaeco), in order to encourage the conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of wildlife biodiversity.

The idea was born after the publication of the study published by the World Animal Protection (2017), carried out worldwide, placing Costa Rica in the 7th position in the world in photographs and selfies in direct contact with wild animals, causing great damage to biodiversity.

A total of eleven sessions with 22 different topics were held from June to November 2021, with the participation of 369 people, including suppliers, Swiss Travel staff, university students, and other tourism companies members of Canaeco.

In 2022, we will continue with the second stage of the program, which will be carried out in a more personalized way, providing tools to tourism companies so that they can identify their impacts or risks to wildlife and create mitigation action plans.

Ecological Blue Flag is a free and voluntary program created by the Costa Rican government, which seeks to encourage the participation of all sectors of society, to develop actions in favor of sustainability.

There are 20 categories of the ecological Blue Flag program, and Swiss Travel has two: Biodiversity and Climate Change.

In the Climate Change category, the company has participated since 2014 and for five years it has consecutively received the 6 Star and 1 Green Star category, the maximum possible in this certificate.