Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
9
Sustainable Tourism Funding Sources
Source: DinarStandard
Financing for sustainable tourism faces a number of challenges including the “maturity
mismatch” between the needs of sustainable tourism projects and the available financial
instruments, lack of information on green investment impact in tourism, and the lack of support
for green business practices. With regards to the available financial instruments, in most cases
there is “maturity mismatch” caused by the fact that many sustainability activities and projects,
especially infrastructure investments, are typically short-term while investors usually look for
projects where assets can be liquidated quickly. Additionally, tourism SMEs may be unable to
provide the collateral needed for securing external financing especially since they are service
providers dealing mainly in “intangibles” which are difficult to quantify and use as collateral.
Information on green investment in tourism is very limited, thus far most green financing has
focused on energy efficiency and ignores other sustainability areas.36
Monitoring and Evaluation of Sustainable Tourism: There are various categories of
indicators; those who provide early warning signals such as a decline in the number of tourists
with the intention to return, those that measure pressures on the system such as water
shortages, those that measure the biodiversity and socio-economic impact such as deforestation,
those that measure management endeavors such as the cleanup cost for coastal contamination,
and those that measure the impact of management intervention such as lower pollution levels.37
Decision makers, in collaboration with stakeholders, need to choose the indicators best suited
to their destination in terms of the salient tourism impact issues that need to be monitored and
addressed.38 There are a number of indicators that destination managers can choose from to
track their sustainability performance and intervene with corrective measures when needed.
The UNWTO’s Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism Destinations tracks 12 areas,
including economic viability, local prosperity, employment quality, social equity, visitor
fulfillment, local control, community well-being, cultural richness, physical integrity, biological
diversity, resource efficiency, and environmental purity. The Sustainable Tourism Index,
launched by the Economist Intelligence Unit, uses performance indicators to rank countries for
best sustainability practices, while, the European Tourism Indicator System is used to monitor
European destinations' performance in four sustainable tourism areas.39 In the following figure,
36 OECD. (2018). OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2018. Paris: OECD Publishing.
37 WTO. (2004). Indicators of sustainable development for tourism destinations: A guidebook . Retrieved from
for-Tourism-Destinations-A-Guide-Book-by-UNWTO.pdf.
38 WTO. (2004). Indicators of sustainable development for tourism destinations: A guidebook . Retrieved from
for-Tourism-Destinations-A-Guide-Book-by-UNWTO.pdf.
39 World Bank Group. (2015). Towards more effective impact measurement in the tourism sector. Retrieved from