Background Improving their sustainability is a major challenge for Europe's tourist destinations. However, in practice, tourist sites and facilities – including hotels, restaurants and camp sites – are managed with little awareness or knowledge of their environmental impacts, or of measures that could be taken to minimise environmental damage. Shortages of time and money often contribute to a reluctance to actively introduce sustainable management practices. Objectives The project's aim was to demonstrate the usefulness to owners and managers of tourism-related businesses of a new computer software tool, already developed in a German context. This is part of a strategy to provide the necessary information and contribute to a systematic approach to environmental management. The specific project objectives were: To demonstrate the environmental management benefits that could result from continuous application of the new software tool; To demonstrate the transferability of the software tool across different countries and sub-sectors of the tourism sector; To demonstrate the usefulness of the software tool for tourism businesses that want to obtain the European Eco-label (the 'European flower'); To improve the software tool through practical application.Results The SUTOUR (EELM) project produced a software tool – which provides hoteliers and others with a way to benchmark their environmental performance (for example by showing how pollution can be reduced) and compare it against standards as expressed by the European Eco-label and other schemes. The software – which was adapted from the original German context to a number of other European contexts - includes following issues: Basic introduction to an environmental management system according to ISO 14.001 and EMAS Measures for reducing environmental pollution Maintenance of environmental data Calculation and comparisons of key figures. The software tool was translated fully into English, and partially into French, Greek and Italian, and was adapted to the specific contexts of the tourism industries in Austria, England, France, Greece and Italy. The software tool in particular is targeted at accommodation providers, showing them how they can introduce and implement environmental management systems. The tool was adapted to a number of different accommodation types, including city hotels, health spas, pension-style accommodation and luxury hotels. The value of the software tool was demonstrated by seven German tourist service providers (six hotels and one caterer), who achieved EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) certification during the course of the project. A further 21 European tourism service providers went through a pre-auditing process, an initial step in EMAS certification. In addition, using the tool and the project's methodology, 69 Italian tourism service providers were awarded the 'green swan' eco-label that is promoted by the Italian environmental organisation Legambiente. The project showed that by using the software tool, tourism service businesses could quickly and easily achieve energy and water consumption savings of at least 10 percent. Aside from the numerous environmental benefits deriving from the use of the software, many beneficial marketing effects were also perceived by improving the companies’ public image. Thanks to the SUTOUR project, two of the project businesses were awarded in the context of the “Umweltpreis Baden-Württemberg 2006” The project cooperated with another LIFE project to publish a brochure entitled 'Environmental initiatives by European tourism businesses', which detailed measures taken by hotels and other accommodation providers to improve their sustainability and to build their capacity to implement more environmentally-friendly management practices. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).