Certification Council

Independent and on a volunteer basis, our council members from the business sector, academics, environment, development and politics decide on the framework and the TourCert certifications to be awarded.

Members

Chairperson of the Certification Council

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Lund-Durlacher
MODUL University, Vienna

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Lund-Durlacher is head of the Department of Tourism and Service Management at MODUL University Vienna. She studied business management in Graz and Vienna and completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Tourism and Leisure Management at Vienna University of Economics and Business. She has been researching and teaching for many years in the field of sustainable tourism with a focus on CSR, climate change, mobility, sustainable food, and consumer behaviour. She is actively engaged in various international networks, both academic and linked to business/economic interests (BEST EN, Futouris, and others).

www.modul.ac.at/about/departments/tourism-and-service-management

Antje Monshausen
Tourism Watch – Bread for the World, Berlin

Antje Monshausen is a graduate in geography and Latin America studies. After her first positions at the Church Development Service (EED), she has since 2012 been head of Tourism Watch, a policy desk at Bread for the World. Tourism Watch works with national and international partners on tourism development with a focus on human rights and the self-determination of local communities. Climate change and concepts of voluntary and binding corporate responsibility also constitute focus areas of Tourism Watch.

www.tourism-watch.de
www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Strasdas
Eberswalde University of Sustainable Development

Wolfgang Strasdas is a landscape planner and since 2002 professor at Eberswalde University of Sustainable Development where he is head of the Centre for Sustainable Tourism (ZENAT) and Master studies in sustainable tourism management. In his research and education he focuses on climate change, management of protected areas, rural regional development, and corporate responsibility. In addition, Prof. Strasdas has for 20 years worked as a freelance tourism consultant with a focus on developing countries, especially in Southern and francophone Africa. He is a member of the advisory board of Futouris e.V. and the national committee of UNESCO Global Geoparks, among others.

www.zenat-tourismus.de

Portrait Herbert Hamele © Ecotrans

Herbert Hamele
Ecotrans, Saarbrücken

Herbert Hamele is chairman of ECOTRANS, a European network of organisations and experts on sustainable tourism. He mainly works on environmental and sustainability certification in tourism world wide, management of the online platform tourismus2030-DestiNet Services, development and consultancy of projects and initiatives for environmentally sustainable and socially responsible tourism, and with national and international bodies.

www.destinet.eu/ecotrans
www.destinet.eu

Portrait Karmen Mentil, ÖAR GmbH

Karmen Mentil
ÖAR GmbH, Vienna

Karmen Mentil is a consultant and partner of ÖAR GmbH, a consultancy for sustainable tourism, regional consultancy and project management for international projects. 2006 – 2022 Managing Director of the Alpine-wide tourism network Alpine Pearls, the umbrella brand for soft mobility in tourism. www.alpine-pearls.com. Main focus: Strategy development, marketing, product development, workshops and trainings, media relations, PR, quality control, planning and implementation of professional events. Reference project: long-term consulting of the often award-winning model village Werfenweng regarding the development of soft mobility offers. Since 07/2022, Karmen Mentil is a research assistant at the TH Deggendorf.

www.oear.at

Chairperson of the Certification Council

Gabriele Landen
ver.di, Berlin

From 2003 to 2019, Gaby Landen was the voluntary chairwoman of the federal specialist group for tourism, leisure and well-being in the ver.di trade union. At ver.di she is committed to the concerns of all workers in the tourism sector and works to ensure humane and social working conditions for all employees, trainees and interns in the entire tourism sector. This is a difficult task in the sector, as many employers deteriorate social conditions and lower salaries by bypassing labour agreements.

www.verdi.de
www.darum.verdi.de

Prof. Dr. Christian Baumgartner
Response & Ability, Vienna

Prof. Dr. Christian Baumgartner, PhD, studied landscape ecology. In 2015, he founded response & ability. After founding respect – Institute for Integrative Tourism and Development in 1995, he was Secretary General of Naturefriends International. In addition to teaching at Krems (Austria) and Chur (Switzerland), he is a member of various tourism consultancy bodies, e.g. the advisory bodies of the Austrian and European Ecolabels. Christian Baumgartner is specialised in the development, implementation and monitoring of sustainable tourism and has accompanied various projects in Europe, Central and South East Asia.

www.responseandability.com

Portrait Prof. Urs Wagenseil, Hochschule Luzern

Prof. Urs Wagenseil
University of Lucerne

Urs Wagenseil has since 2005 been professor at the University of Lucerne – Economics and head of tourism at the department of tourism management. Focus of work in different countries: Consultancy in strategic development of destinations; destination marketing, cooperation management; teaching in Germany and Spain; management of research projects; publications, speeches. Previous positions: Kuoni Head Office Zürich, Switzerland (various positions); RB Wettstein, Switzerland (CEO); Diners Club Switzerland (Sales Manager International Corporate Accounts); Lenzerheide Tourism, Switzerland; director of tourism (destination manager). Urs Wagenseil also holds two positions at the Global Sustainable Tourism Council: as “Chair of the Education & Training Work Group GSTC” and as “Member of the Destination Stewardship Working Group GSTC”.

www.hslu.ch/de-ch/wirtschaft/institute/itw

Portrait Dirk Dunkelberg, Deutscher Tourismusverband - ©Jan Sobotka/DTV

Dirk Dunkelberg
German Tourism Association, Berlin

Dirk Dunkelberg is vice CEO and manager of technical and project work with the German Tourism Association (DTV). He is in charge of sustainable development in tourism in Germany and of DTV’s technical committee “Sustainable Tourism“. Furthermore, he coordinates all funded projects, especially those on sustainable tourism. He is a member of the advisory board of Germany’s federal ”Blue Ribbon“ programme by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) and the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). He is a member of the research advisory board of the German Economic Institute for Tourism at Munich University (DWIF) and regular guest at the tourism conference of the Association of German Cities.

www.deutschertourismusverband.de/politik/nachhaltigkeit

Martina von Münchhausen
WWF, Hamburg

Martina von Münchhausen is in charge of the tourism programme of WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) Germany at the International WWF Centre for Marine Conservation. Previously, she worked for ten years at the department of nature conservation at the central offices of WWF Germany in Frankfurt am Main. When the new offices in Hamburg were set up, she moved and has since 2006 been working on strengthening sustainable tourism and its development and on joint strategies with the tourism industry. Other focus areas of her work are the reduction of the tourism footprint, climate change and the introduction of a globally recognised sustainability label in tourism.

www.wwf.de

Extraordinary Members

Petra Thomas
forum anders reisen e. V., Hamburg

Petra Thomas is CEO of forum anders reisen e.V., the German umbrella association in sustainable tourism. The association was founded in 1998. It has about 130 member companies and is engaged in the development and propagation of sustainable tourism based on content criteria, which takes people and the environment as an orientation. To that effect, the members have committed themselves to a comprehensive set of criteria, the observation of which has since 2008 been monitored in a compulsory CSR process. The association supports its members in the implementation, works on improving the political conditions, and informs the public on sustainable tourism.

www.forumandersreisen.de

Portrait Sven Wolf

Sven Wolf
ServiceQualität Deutschland (SQD) e.V., Berlin

Sven Wolf is head of the initiative ServiceQualität Deutschland at federal level, which offers tools for quality development for small and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism service chain. In addition to the development of quality management tools, he is responsible for cooperation with other initiatives at the federal level, such as TourCert. He studied geography (diploma) as well as quality and sustainability management (master), teaches QM in tourism as a freelance lecturer at several universities and is a member of the management team of the expert group “Excellent Customer Service” of the German Society for Quality (DGQ). One of his major concerns is the combination of quality and sustainability management.

www.q-deutschland.de

Roland Schmid
Swiss Federation of Travel Agents (SRV), Zurich

Roland Schmid has since 2016 worked as an independent consultant, speaker and mentor in tourism. Previously, the Bachelor in Business Management with an NDS in Communication Management & Leadership was head of communication, sustainability and crises management at TUI Suisse for 17 years. In 2009 he was a founding member of the sustainability initiative Futouris. At the Swiss Federation of Travel Agents (SRV), he manages the technical body on Environment & Social Affairs. He represents the SRV in national (Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights, SKMR) and international bodies (TourCert Certification Council, Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism).

www.srv.ch

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