Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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Figure 22: Policy Recommendations Framework
Source: DinarStandard Analysis
The recommendations provided below for OIC member countries address both the overall
sustainable destination management parameters as well as the sustainable tourism
strategies. They also address recommendations at (a) the destination level, and (b) national
level, and (c) regional/international level.
One consideration in implementing the recommendations is where countries fall within the
followingmatrix that considers a country’s dependence on tourism and its sustainability risk.
The country examples provided within the matrix are based on considering the percentage
of travel and tourism’s contribution to the country’s GDP, along with the percentage of
government expenditure on travel and tourism, to determine the country’s level of
dependence on tourism. Countries’ sustainability risk is determined based on their score on
the stringency of environmental regulations along with their score on enforcement of these
regulations. The scores and percentages are obtained from the World Economic Forum’s
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017.401 For example, in Gambia, travel and tourism
contributes 8.4% to GDP and government expenditure on travel and tourism, represents
almost 10% of government budget. Compare this to Pakistan, where travel and tourism
contributes a mere 2.8% to GDP, and expenditure on travel and tourism represents 2% of the
budget. In terms of sustainability risks, an example of a country with low risk is the UAE,
which scored 5.5 on the stringency of environmental regulations, and 5.5 on enforcement of
environmental regulation. Compare this to Yemen, which scored 1.7 on stringency of
environmental regulations and 1.8 on enforcement of those regulations.
401 World Economic Forum. (2017). The travel & tourism competitiveness report 2017. Retrieved from