Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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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. In many instances, the same indicator is used for different purposes, thus,
an indicator used for measuring pressures on the system can also be used after management
intervention to measure the impact of such interventions.153
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. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development has worked on providing
guidelines for the development of national indicator programs that are destination-specific.
Beyond the continuous efforts by international organizations in this area, there are a number of
sustainable tourism indicator initiatives around the globe, launched by various stakeholders
from governmental bodies and educational organizations to tourism businesses and local
communities.154 There are a number of indicators that destination managers can choose from to
track their sustainability performance and intervene with corrective measures when needed. In
the following table, examples of international and regional indicators and the areas they cover
are presented. The UNWTO’s Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism Destinations
tracks 12 areas, namely 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.155
153 WTO. (2004). Indicators of sustainable development for tourism destinations: A guidebook. Retrieved from
for-Tourism-Destinations-A-Guide-Book-by-UNWTO.pdf.
154 WTO. (2004). Indicators of sustainable development for tourism destinations: A guidebook. Retrieved from
for-Tourism-Destinations-A-Guide-Book-by-UNWTO.pdf.
155 World Bank Group. (2015). Towards more effective impact measurement in the tourism sector. Retrieved from
tourism-sector-
openconsultationtemplate/phases/wbg_towards_more_effective_impact_measurement_in_the_tourism_sector_consultations.
pdf.