Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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of sustainable tourism. Monitoring forms the backbone of informed decisionmaking when
it comes to sustainable tourism and destination development.
Translate and Implement Agenda 2030 in a Sustainable Tourism Context: This is
self-evident and one of the roles that the country-wide advisory and monitory body,
proposed above to monitor performance, can be given real meaning.
Align Science, Policy and Capital in Pursuit of Sustainable Tourism: Sustainable
tourism policies need to work at all levels across society, including those of academics,
entrepreneurs and social policy planers. Creating and sustaining formal ways in which
these sectors can work collaboratively is an important first step which can be made
through, for example, the establishment of country-wide advisory and monitoring bodies
whose primary purpose is to assess and provide advice on all whole-of-government
activity as it relates to tourism, with the objective of qualifying policy decisions to assist
short-term, sustainable goals supported by thorough and on-going scientific research
activities.
Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Sustainability: The OIC should take
the lead in creating and producing a range of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for
Sustainability for quick and easy use by its Members so that cross-country comparison
can be made. The full range of such indicators may be relevant to some countries, with
only a few for others. This is no matter since the aim is to assimilate valid and reliable data
from as broad a cross-section of Members as possible.
Establish an OIC-level sustainable tourism monitoring system: Every member
country needs to determine its position regarding its overall tourism climate based on
where it sits in destination life cycle models, what its tourism resources are and what its
total tourism budget it. This involves an on-going process of acquiring valid and reliable
data across these sectors in ways that, ideally, lead to cross-country comparisons.
Hence, one policy activity for the OIC should be aimed at creating standard, generic models
that each member country can complete. These should then be completed on an annual
basis with all relevant data stored centrally by the OIC as a formal service to its members.
In this way, trends can be analyzed, countries can inspect their position relative to others
and can make decisions for future action based on comparisons with others perhaps
further along the life cycle from which long-term sustainability can be inferred.
Every member country needs to formally assess (perhaps rank) its natural and cultural
resources to a model produced by the OIC for use for its members. This will enable cross-
country comparisons to be made as well as instigating a continual (annual) process of
resource monitoring and re-grading. In this way each country can see quickly where
remedial action is needed to protect vulnerable areas and where additional resources are
required to uplift poor areas.
The OIC can assist this policy area creating standard, generic models that each member
country can complete. All relevant data can be stored centrally by the OIC as a formal
service to its members. In this way, trends can be analysed, countries can inspect their
position relative to others and can make decisions for future action based on comparisons