10 Jan Planning for Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism management requires careful planning according to our recent study of the GSTC Destination Criteria.

Core to sustainable tourism planning is the development of a Destination Management Strategy designed to support the long-term sustainability of the destination community. These strategies should be:

• Suited to the scale of the destination
• Developed with stakeholders and publicly available
• Based on sustainability principles and
• Align with other sustainability plans in the community.

So what things should destinations be including in their plans? Our review of the destination criteria suggest that plans should be in place to:

• Protect the environment
• Protect culture and heritage
• Mitigate and adapt to climate change
• Manage visitors
• Manage risks in the destination and prepare for crises
• Ensure safety and security in the destination community
• Develop the workforce
• Encourage businesses to adopt sustainable tourism management practices.

Planning is one of the five elements of Destination Criteria we identified in our recent review. Other elements include implementing a policy framework to support sustainable tourism, ensuring programs are in place that support sustainability, establishing performance management systems to measure progress towards sustainability goals, and establishing an effective team of people to manage it all. For more information on our review, download the report here.

Written by Dr Jonathon Day

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash