Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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1.3. Monitoring and Evaluation of Sustainable Tourism
1.3.1. Sustainable Tourism Indicators
Tourism stakeholders, including DMOs, governmental bodies, educational institutions, regional
and international organizations, tourism industry players, and local communities, have been
involved in the development of sustainable tourism indicators especially those pertaining to
social and environmental impacts. In many instances, stakeholders have also been involved in
collecting data for monitoring and evaluation of tourism at the destination, especially when the
destination management organizations or responsible governmental bodies have limited
financial resources. In Argentina, the tourist guides in the Iguazu Forest Natural Reserve were
given training to document wild fauna and flora on their tours of the reserve. Tourists were also
invited to participate in documenting the fauna and flora on these tours.149
There are also several accreditation systems developed by both commercial and not-for-profit
organizations, such as Green Tourism in the UK, Viabono in Germany, and Green Globe in the
United States. In 2007, various stakeholders, including the UNWTO in collaboration with the UN
Environment Program, The UN Foundation and the NGO Rainforest Alliance, created the GSTC
which provides a globally recognized sustainable tourism certification. In 2012, a number of
tourism stakeholders, including the WTTC, a number of large hotel groups, a UK sustainable
tourism-focused NGO, and the accounting firm KPMG, worked together to create tools and
standards for measurement of carbon emissions which have since been implemented by over
15,000 hospitality organizations.150
Some would claim that the unification of sustainable tourism standards can encourage the
adoption of sustainable tourism practices, however, others argue that the different
environmental, social, and economic conditions of individual countries underscore the need for
specific sustainability standards that are relevant to their situations. Issues like water
management may be a priority for a country like South Africa but not for other countries with
very different needs and limitations.151 There is universal agreement however that the use of
indicators is crucial for effective monitoring as they provide the means to measure the
seriousness of current risks, signal the need for intervention, and evaluate the impact of
interventions. Sustainable tourism indicators, which can be either qualitative or quantitative,
cover various areas from economic sustainability to social, cultural, and environmental tourism
impacts as well as the effectiveness of destinationmanagement. The most widely used indicators
are the economic impact indicators, which include basic tourism indicators such as tourist
arrivals and spending as well as specific sustainability indicators such as carrying capacity,
which can be measured in a variety of ways frommeasuring tourist numbers in peak seasons to
measuring tourist usage of natural resources such as average use of water per tourist.152
There are various categories of indicators; those that provide early warning signals such as
decline in number of tourists with the intention to return, those that measure pressures on the
149 UNWTO. (2013). Sustainable tourism for development guidebook. UNWTO.
150 The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2017). The sustainable tourism index: Enhancing the global travel environment .
Retrieved from
151 The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2017). The sustainable tourism index: Enhancing the global travel environment .
Retrieved from
152 WTO. (2004). Indicators of sustainable development for tourism destinations: A guidebook. Retrieved from
for-Tourism-Destinations-A-Guide-Book-by-UNWTO.pdf.