Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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collaboration with governmental, non-governmental, and private sector stakeholders, the
project aims to strengthen the country’s tourism industry by enhancing its facilities and services,
improving the management and marketing of tourism sites, boosting marketing efforts and
encouraging tourism of secondary sites. The project also addresses the need to increase the
number of women and youth employed in the tourism sector, where there is a high demand for
skilled, trained, and competitive personnel. The BEST project’s activities are: 1) creating a
business enabling environment, 2) tourism asset development, 3) destination marketing, 4)
industry development and destination excellence, and 5) managing the Tourism Partnership
Fund,330 which offers grants in various areas of the tourism sector, including asset development,
destination marketing, and creating public-private partnerships.331
The Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Tourism Sector Development in Jordan (BITS) Project is
part of the Strategic Environmental Assessment for Jordan TourismStrategy 2015-2019 andwas
developed by the UNDP in collaboration with MoTA and other public entities with the aim of
positioning the consideration of biodiversity as absolutely fundamental from the start.332 The
project has three levels of intervention: 1) at a national level, to develop a regulatory framework
to reduce the impact of tourism on biodiversity, 2) at a regional level, to promote awareness and
sensitivity of the value of biodiversity as a tourism asset and attraction, and to monitor and
manage the impact of tourism development inside and outside protected areas, and 3) at the
Protected Area (PA) level, to enhance site capacity and management effectiveness in order to
preserve protected biodiversity and benefit from nature-based tourism and ecotourism.333
Through this Project, UNDP also supported MoTA in forming its Green Tourism Unit, which
regulates and enhances the adoption of environmental good practices in the tourism sector in
Jordan.334
Private social enterprises, such as Experience Baraka, focus specifically on strengthening the
local community through developing the destination and building tourism micro-businesses.
With the view that development and tourism go hand-in-hand, Experience Baraka developed a
model where viable business should have a positive impact on the communities. They provide
investment, build capacity and support to establish operative, viable and competitive businesses
in destinations where local communities have not seen the benefit of tourism. In the example of
Um Qais, an important historical and archeological site, tourists would bus in and spend an
average of two hours and leave. Baraka Experience helped to set up some businesses run by
locals and contributed to enhancing other businesses to achieve a localized supply chain. The
number of tourists has remained the same, at around 2000, but the average time spent went
from two hours to two days, which meant a 300% growth for the local economy. This has been
hugely impactful since many families are not able to make an income.335
330 USAID. (2017). USAID building economic sustainability through tourism. Retrieved from
331 USAID. (n.d.). Grants. Retrieved from
332 United Nations Development Program, Strategic Assessment for Jordan Tourism Strategy, 2014.
333 UNDP. (2016). UNDP to support preservation efforts in Petra. Retrieved from
preservation-efforts-in-petra.html.
334 UNDP. (n.d.). UNDP Jordan supports the Ministry of tourism & Antiquities to take the first step towards tourism transition
into green economy. Retrieved from
supports-the-ministry-of-tourism---antiquities-to-ta.html.
335 From interview with founder and CEO of Experience Baraka.