Proceedings of the 12th Meeting of
The COMCEC Tourism Working Group
17
7.2. GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE TOURISM COUNCIL (GSTC)
Dr Ioannis PAPPAS, Director Med, GSTC, made a presentation on “GSTC: Role and Mission for
Sustainable Destinations”.
At the beginning of his presentation, he mentioned especially in the terms of sustainability,
which is generally misunderstood by visitors in countries. He underlined, it is a quality of a
product, it is more about concrete in the market.
He also stated that the value of standards is crucial in sustainable tourism because it gives the
rules about that certification and accreditation which is also important in this context about
sustainability in for example, certifying a hotel or giving training to tourism employees. But
this process is not easy to do in tourism market, because the hotels are not always keen on this
subject.
He concluded her presentation by underlying that destination should have a road map for
sustainable destination to apply. For a sustainable destination first, destinations have to create
a strategy then an action plan and finally crating a marketing plan.