Home Personnel Profile Tom Griffin is Driving Force Behind New Virginia Green Travel Alliance

Tom Griffin is Driving Force Behind New Virginia Green Travel Alliance

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Name: Tom Griffin
Title: Executive Director, Virginia Green Travel Alliance
Primary responsibilities: Through the Virginia Green Travel Alliance, Tom’s primary tasks are to support and expand the marketing and outreach efforts of the Virginia Green program and provide training and certification opportunities, technical assistance and auditing services, and develop innovative marketing partnerships.
Organization’s most significant accomplishment so far: “We are really just ramping up but what I am really excited about is our staff-level education series,” Griffin says.
Organization’s most significant challenge: “Funding is one of our challenges and we are looking for different types of partnerships,” Griffin adds.

RICHMOND, VA.—This year marked a time of big change for Tom Griffin. The original developer of the Virginia Green program and its overall coordinator since 2008 gave up his coordinator responsibilities to lead the creation of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance (VGTA). Griffin officially took on the position of Executive Director of VGTA on July 1. To help him with VGTA, Griffin has put together a board of 12 people who are influential in Virginia’s tourism industry.

In his new role Griffin will remain extremely close to the original Virginia Green program. In fact, one of the missions of VGTA is to support the Virginia Green program and expand its marketing potential. The initial focus of VGTA will be on staff-level training and certification opportunities. VGTA is developing a staff training program geared toward new-hires that will orient trainees on what it means to work in a Virginia Green-certified facility. Upon completion of the orientation, participants will receive a Virginia Green All-Staff Certificate.

VGTA is also developing a training program to help property level employees prepare for green meetings. In the process of earning a Virginia Green Meeting Professionals Certificate, participants will get instruction on how to prepare for and attract green meetings business. The class will include instruction on how to design a green meetings sales package and how to address green requirements in RFPs.

In addition to those training programs, VGTA also intends to offer the following: Virginia Green Food & Beverage and Green Team Program Leadership Certificates; webinars for Virginia Green businesses on topics such as recycling, energy and water efficiency; and on-site and desk-based certified auditing services. VGTA will also assist a business in need of green team training by providing a part-time green team manager. VGTA is also available to assist with other tasks—completing a TripAdvisor Green Leaders program application, for example.

Virginia Green Highly Successful

More than 1,500 tourism businesses and organizations have self-certified their environmental commitments with the Virginia Green program, making it the top state-based green tourism program in the United States. Virginia Green is run through a partnership among the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC), and the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association (VHTA). The program seeks to reduce the environmental impacts of the tourism industry and raise environmental awareness. It started in September 2006 with outreach to hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other lodging facilities by the DEQ Office of Pollution Prevention. Virginia Green Lodging became the first established program in the Virginia Green network, but standards are now in place or are being developed for all sectors of the hospitality industry.

DEQ currently manages the application process and provides participant assistance, recognition, and maintenance of the Virginia Green website. As part of Virginia is for Lovers website, VTC hosts an online database that allows consumers to search for accommodations, restaurants, and conference facilities that participate in Virginia Green. Additionally, VTC and VHTA both work to market Virginia Green to the hospitality and tourism industry.

For Virginia Green participants VGTA is currently planning a fall conference. The Second Annual Virginia Green Travel Conference will take place December 8 to 9 at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond. The event last year drew 125 people. The attendance goal this year is 175. This year’s event will feature green vendor exhibits, training workshops, speakers, and the Fourth Annual Virginia Green Travel Star Awards.

For Griffin, who received a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Virginia and a Masters in Environmental Planning from the Virginia Commonwealth University, the environment has long been a strong interest of his. “I have definitely had a love of the outdoors,” he says. “I am an avid fisherman—surf fishing is my true love. The wilderness—the outdoors—are special to me.”

Keeping him energized is knowing that there are many lodging establishments and other tourism businesses in Virginia that still taking baby steps when it comes to sustainability.

“I am still working with many folks for whom this is entirely new to them,” Griffin says.

Go to the Virginia Green Travel Alliance.

Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

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