Awards and labels for Landes tourism professionals

Round tables allowed participants to learn more about these labels and to respond to a growing demand for support in integrating quality and accessibility initiatives, now considered a priority by a large number of tourism stakeholders.

Hervé Bouyrie, President of Landes Attractivité, opened the day: "Why are we meeting today? Because quality, sustainability, and inclusion are no longer optional in tourism development. Today, we are honoring the winners of the following labels: Destination of Excellence, European Ecolabel, Green Key, the Engaged CSR label, and the Tourism & Disability label. These programs, although different, share a common foundation: they encourage us to rethink our practices, evaluate our impacts, listen to our customers, and make continuous improvement a professional reflex. They are also reliable benchmarks for customers."

“Ask yourself the question every day”

The CCI and Landes Attractivité are working hand in hand on this project: "For you, it shouldn't just be names and logos on paper," explains Thomas Aubanelle of the Landes CCI. "It must be concrete actions, with people on the ground who understand what you do and when they contact you, when they come to you, they must be truly useful and not speak from a pedestal with a vision and a discourse that is distant from what you do every day, otherwise we have missed each other."

Before sharing his experience as a tourism professional: "At Les Échasses (an eco-lodge in Saubion, editor's note), we ask ourselves a question every day. And we need a very clear answer that can be summed up in one or two sentences. Why aren't the people who stay with us staying in an Airbnb? If we have an answer to this question, we're probably on the right track. And this question is asked in different terms, but it applies to thermal spas, campsites, and restaurants."

Christophe Rondelé, director of the Seignosse golf course, has received the national Destination of Excellence label, a first for a golf course: "Our company, Résonance Golf Collection, because we have 12 other golf courses in France, will be part of this quality approach for all of our establishments. We already had a label from the French Golf Federation and the Natural History Museum, which is called the Golf for Biodiversity label."

Is the clientele sensitive to this? "People are starting to look at the eco-responsibility of golf courses. Water management, zero phytosanitary measures – which is new in 2025 – and that really resonates, especially with foreign tourists. It's not a label for the sake of it, it's a quality approach. Sometimes, we see, as with the Tursan vineyard, that it's certainly a matter of survival, in the long term. For golf courses, it's also a matter of survival, in some way, moving towards sustainable tourism. We're also very committed to the inclusion aspect."