Sustainable Destination Management

Strategies in the OIC Member Countries

Figure 2: The Triple Bottom Line and Aims of Sustainable Tourism

Source: DinarStandard Analysis based on the TBL concept and UNWTO’s Sustainable Tourism Goals

Challenges to Sustainable Tourism Strategies Implementation

The implementation of sustainable tourism strategies faces a number of obstacles including a lack

of awareness and understanding of the concept tourism sustainability, the prioritization of

economic objectives over environmental and social issues, inadequate coordination and

incorporation into wider policy on the different governmental levels, weak stakeholder

involvement and support, and insufficient resources committed to sustainability strategies

implementation. The most common barrier to the implementation of sustainable tourism

strategies is the prioritization of economic goals whether by governments in general or

destination management organizations in particular. The tendency of governments to focus on

short-term objectives entails the prioritization of economic over social and environmental

issues. With sustainable tourism goals being short-term and costly while political terms and

agendas cover four to five years, government administrations focus on initiatives that can be

more noticeable to the local communities. The short-term focus of destination management

fueled by the constant competition between destinations leads inmany instances to destinations

compromising their natural heritage and resources sustainability by adding new developments

and activities and increasing tourists’ consumption patterns to prevent destination decline. This

approach can lead to the deterioration of tourism resources which can eventually cause loss of

destination competitiveness, leading inadvertently to the destination decline.

The lack of coordination between the various departments and different levels of government

represents another main barrier to the implementation of sustainable tourism strategies. In

some instances, national and regional plans for tourism development are at odds with local

sustainability needs. Implementing sustainable tourism strategies requires close coordination

and frequent communication between various government departments including those entities

Dodds, R., & Butler, R., (2010). Barriers to implementing sustainable tourism policy in mass tourism destinations.

TOURISMOS, 5

(1), 35-53.