In response to the disbandment of the Japan Ecolodge Association, the GSTC recognized standard, Environmentally Sustainable Accommodations International Standard (ESAIS), has transferred all its rights to Asian Ecotourism Network (AEN) as the end of year 2017. The revision of the original standard took place within AEN to reflect 1) the changes made to comply with the updated GSTC Industry Criteria and 2) the Asian ecotourism contexts and deleted the Japanese contexts that were not relevant for other Asian countries.

AESA has been fully recognized as equivalent to the GSTC Industry Criteria by the GSTC Accreditation Panel at its meeting on 30 July 2019. Specifically, it has been demonstrated to comply with changes introduced with the release of GSTC-I in December 2016. The stated scope of the standard is ecolodges and ecoresorts or nature-based lodges in the Asia Pacific.

Rules to meet the standard: All criteria are encouraged to be used for all nature-based lodges and resorts regardless of the size. It can be used as a checklist. Depending on the country or geographical setting, some criteria are difficult to apply thus they are made as optional criteria. We will be setting the rules for ones that satisfy our standard in the form of recognition and/or awards with an opportunity for annual internal and periodic third party auditing. For the time being, you can utilize the free on-line self-assessment tool. Just click on the yellow button below for English assessment on-line. More details on the reporting and assessment will be made available here on our website soon.