27 Aug Sustainable Tourism: Assets vs P&Ls

One of the most compelling ideas in sustainability has been Elkington’s “Triple Bottom Line”. The idea has its origins in accounting – where income minus expenses reveal “a bottom line” that shows either a profit or a loss. The idea that we could consider positive and negative outcomes from economic, social/cultural, and environmental impacts to give us a sense of whether we doing well or not has become ubiquitous. While there are issues with the TBL (Elkington himself tried to “recall it”), it certainly helped conceptualize the challenge of balancing multiple priorities.

While the profit and loss sheet is interesting – it is time we paid greater attention to another important accounting report – the balance sheet. Sustainable is about maintaining and growing assets.

Sustainable tourism requires nurturing a range of tangible and intangible assets for the sustainability of the community. For tourism, a healthy environment must be considered an important asset. So must the unique culture of a destination community.

The growth of the term “Destination Stewardship” captures this concept perfectly. A steward manages assets.

It is time for the conversation to focus on the assets we plan to preserve, enhance and enrich in our destination communities.