From Hanoi’s new sustainable tourism award to Morocco’s eco park investment, green travel is shaping where and how we vacation.
You’ve probably seen the “eco-certified” badge on a hotel booking or the “plastic-free stay” claim on a hotel’s blog. But lately, destinations themselves are stepping into the green spotlight — and not just with eco accommodations. Two recent developments, in Hanoi and Morocco, help clarify where green travel is headed and how your next trip might fit within that frame.
Hanoi recently won the Sustainable Tourism Award from the Tourism Promotion Organisation for Global Cities (TPO). That honor is framed not only as a recognition of its “enduring efforts in fostering a friendly travel environment,” but also as a signal of “the urgent need for green transformation to assert its position on the international tourism map.”
Concurrently, Morocco has unveiled a highly visible eco-investment designed to fuse public and private support into a new benchmark for sustainable tourism in the kingdom. But what does this look like on the ground? And what does it imply for people who just want a better stay or a more thoughtful trip?
Hanoi’s green gestures in a bustling city
Hanoi’s award-winning sustainability practices focus on integrating small, visible changes into everyday life. The city has trimmed single-use plastics from hotels and restaurants. It launched a “Green Sunday” campaign to get residents and visitors involved. It’s introduced waste sorting systems around cultural relics and pushed community-based ecotourism in greener outskirts. Over time, these visible shifts accumulate.
In 2024, the city welcomed about 28 million tourist arrivals, including more than 6.4 million international visitors, generating VNĐ111 trillion (approx. US$4.2 billion) in tourism revenue — roughly eight percent of its gross regional domestic product. During the 80th National Day holiday in 2025, more than two million travelers went through Hanoi in four days — triple the previous year’s numbers. International arrivals rose 35 percent, revenue jumped 80 percent (to about VNĐ4.5 trillion), and hotel occupancy averaged 83 percent.
Even with those numbers, challenges remain. “No Hanoi destination has been officially recognised as a green one under standardised criteria,” Vice Chairman Phạm Trung Lương told reporters. He cited gaps in awareness, lack of unified evaluation systems, limited budgets, and weak inter-sector coordination.
Experts are pushing for a tailored set of green benchmarks, greater regional connection (so visitors see green hubs beyond the core), deeper community engagement, and more investment in clean energy and sustainable infrastructure. In parallel, Hanoi University, partnering with the International Organisation of La Francophonie, has launched training to foster sustainability mindsets among tourism professionals, grounded in the idea that “non-environmentally friendly tourism models will be removed.”
Morocco’s eco vision for Ifrane
Morocco’s approach is less about retrofitting an existing city and more about creating a destination designed with ecology in mind. At a recent conference in Ifrane, Imad Barrakad of the Moroccan Agency for Tourism Development laid out a plan to intensify investment and roll out new, nature-centered tourism products under a 640-million-dirham umbrella.
Abderrahim Houmi, head of the National Agency for Water and Forests, emphasized that the effort is not development at any cost. “Around the world, there are examples that show we can promote protected areas while preserving them,” he said.
The plan is to elevate the eco-tourism offering to something “classified and high-quality” for discerning travelers, while positioning Morocco as a leader in sustainability in the region. Tourism Minister Fatim-Zahra Ammor noted that the share of tourists choosing sustainable lodging has doubled from five percent in 2019 to ten percent in 2024. The government is backing this shift with incentives: the Investment Charter now favors green investments; new legislation supports alternative lodging models such as homestays; and the GO SIYAHA program offers up to 40 percent subsidies for sustainable projects. More than 200 initiatives have already tapped into these funds, especially in solar and energy efficiency. A 200-million-dirham fund is dedicated to developing 16 rural destinations under a “Tourist Villages” label.
Ifrane’s initiative pairs 640 million dirhams of public investment with 93 million in private funding. Plans include low-impact lodging, eco-trails, nature interpretation centers, and sport and leisure features integrated into the landscape. Under King Mohammed VI, Morocco has reasserted sustainability as a national priority, with a goal of 26 million tourist arrivals by 2030 built on ecological integrity and international positioning.
By mid-2025, Morocco had already recorded 13.5 million international arrivals — up 15 percent year over year. During the first seven months alone, tourism revenue totaled 67 billion dirhams, about US$7 billion — roughly a 13 percent increase over the same period in 2024.
Shifting expectations around the world
The consumer landscape is shifting just as quickly. Booking.com’s 2024 Sustainable Travel Report found that 75 percent of travelers planned to travel more sustainably over the following year, while 57 percent said they intended to reduce their energy consumption during trips, whether by skipping daily towel changes or switching off hotel air conditioning. The findings underscore that accommodation, transportation, and destination management all need to work in sync for these ambitions to stick.
The money is there, too. The global sustainable tourism market was valued at more than US$3.3 trillion in 2024, with analysts projecting a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent through 2031. The business case for green travel is strengthening alongside the moral one.
Other destinations are reinforcing the momentum; Helsinki recently became the first city of over half a million residents to secure the Green Destinations certification, assessed against Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria. The city’s waterfront hotel Katajanokan Laituri, constructed with carbon-storing timber and sourcing 85 percent of its menu locally, illustrates how sustainability can be baked into the very architecture of travel.
Costa Rica continues to lead with regenerative tourism, integrating biodiversity preservation into everything from surf camps to jungle lodges. In the Maldives, high-end resorts are experimenting with coral restoration and renewable energy, showing how sustainability is penetrating even the luxury tier with a special feature — it is becoming part of what defines a destination’s appeal.
Related on Ethos:
