Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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local economic development, reduce the often-felt divide between rural and urban areas and
promote social integration. It can also help to raise awareness of cultural and environmental
issues, part-finance the protection and management of protected areas and contribute to the
preservation of biological diversity. As such, its potential to advance UNESCO’s 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development has been widely recognised, which includes UN Resolution
A/RES/70/193 that designated 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for
Development. 397
Despite the many and obvious opportunities presented by this continually-growing sector,
tourism faces a number of challenges stemming from the fact that it is a multi-level, highly
fragmented activity often with competing policy objectives at both national and international
levels. Moreover, it is subject to overarching factors over which it has, in and of itself, little or no
control – climate change, marine plastic pollution, macro-economic conditions (fluctuating
exchange rates, the cost of fuel, particularly oil), ever-changing global politics and tourists’ own
perception of risk and personal safety. Added to this, tourism services are themselves evolving
rapidly, particularly in response to the digitisation of the world economy, the application of
advanced technologies and the development of specialised sectors such as eco-tourism, slow
tourism and adventure tourism. Collectively, these factors underscore the complexity of the
‘tourism ecology’ and the need for thoughtful policies designed to orient and guide this sector
towards a more sustainable future.
As a result, policies formulated to advance the future well-being of a place (or destination), its
people and its ecology must be capable of withstanding rapidly-changing pressures. Because of
this, sustainable tourism policies must necessarily be high-level and stand distinct from the
strategies (national and international) which evolve from them to effect change on the ground.
In 2013, in recognition of the negative impacts that tourism, particularly packaged tourism, was
having on some parts of the world, the UN’s World TourismOrganisation (WTO) responded with
a campaign to ‘let travellers know how they can best benefit the people and places they visit’.
The campaign had four hooks: (a) buy local, (b) respect local culture, (c) save energy and (d)
protect heritage. Whilst laudable in themselves, they are open to question: (a) buying local
depends on who’s doing the buying … the airline, the tour operator, the hotel chain?; (b) is
respecting local culture the same as indigenous culture?; (c) getting to a destination uses a lot of
energy (most of it non-renewable) as does the use of digital technologies when at the
destination; (d) just being in a place may help to destroy it … infrastructure developments,
visitor centres, the place’s sheer attractiveness can eventually lead to its demise.
Hence, it is not sufficient to produce policies for the sustainable use of resources in, say, a noted
tourist area (a World Heritage Site, for example) whilst simultaneously engaging in the
exploitation of non-renewable resources in another. Global agreements, such as the Paris
Agreement on Climate Change (adopted on 12 December 2015) must be implemented through
all-sector activity, tourism included, and at the highest levels.
Thus, whilst recognising that policies aimed at promoting sustainable tourism are just one part
of any government’s responsibility to effectively and efficiently manage change, there is no
doubt that – in theory at least – adopting and promoting comprehensive policies towards
sustainable tourism management should, and indeed must, form a central plank of all
397 United Nations. (2016). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 22 December 2015. Retrieved from
RES/70/193&referer=/english/&Lang=E.