Criteria and indicators

Although the discussion on sustainable tourism has developed into a serious international debate over the past ten years, it has also given rise to many misunderstandings. 

In the beginning sustainable tourism referred to the sustainability of tourism itself: how long could the viability of tourism be guaranteed in a certain region. Would tourism be able to prevent the destruction of the natural resources it depended upon and would tourists be interested to keep coming for a long period of years.

In the meantime it has been widely accepted that it is not so much about the sustainability of tourism as a sector but more about sustainable development of the region in general: does tourism contribute to sustainable development in the destination? And the question is now even being stretched further, to cover sustainable development worldwide, not only looking at the consequences for destination areas, but also on a more global scale, e.g. the effects of the growth of air traffic are included.

The criteria to define the sustainability of tourism consequently changed over the years. Due to the persistence of NGOs interested in the social and ecological impacts of sustainable development, the original nature and consumer oriented criteria for sustainable tourism evolved into more balanced sets of criteria that included attention for the effects of tourism for the social, economic and ecological local structures.

But the numerous attempts to define criteria and indicators for sustainable tourism, has not yet led to a framework which is widely accepted so that it would make a discussion on them superfluous. As in the discussions on labeling and certification, each stakeholder uses its own perspective to add or leave out certain criteria and gives different weight or priority to each of them. Therefore every new sustainable tourism project will unavoidably start with as first step to "identify the criteria for sustainable tourism".

In our opinion, many of those attempts not only reinvent the wheel, but they also close their eyes for negotiated, and sometimes binding, frameworks which give a solid basis to establish criteria for sustainable tourism.

Starting point is that there should be agreement on what is sustainable tourism. For us that is clear: tourism that contributes to sustainable development. What tourism is can be derived from the definitions of the WTO. The body with the highest authority on the issue of sustainable  development, is in our view the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. Since UNCED in Rio in 1992, they have put down the issues and criteria for sustainable development in numerous documents with as a tourism highlight the UN-CSD-7 in 1999 in New York and its Decision 7/3: Tourism and sustainable development. Every attempt to define criteria for sustainable tourism should in our opinion start there.

Now it is clear that one of the core elements of sustainable development is that it fulfills the needs of local communities. Since these are different from region to region, it seems clear that part of the criteria of sustainable tourism should be flexible, in the sense that they respond to the particular needs of the destination area for which one defines sustainable tourism. Defining the criteria for sustainable tourism cannot do without a serious assessment of the needs for sustainable development in the destination involved.

The concept of sustainable development was an answer to the simplistic approach of environmentalists who wanted to save the earth without paying attention to the economic and socio-cultural needs (and richness) of poor people inhabiting valuable natural areas. The core of the concept therefore is a complex mix of ecological, economic and socio-cultural elements. A very important issue is the aspect of informed participation. It is of crucial importance that local people participate in the decisions on their future and share in the benefits of bringing these decisions into practice. This should be done on a basis of sharing with them the necessary information and of respecting their local decision structures. As a consequence, these complex issues should get as much attention in establishing the criteria for sustainable tourism as the much easier definable criteria for environmental protection. Unfortunately, until now, especially in issues of ecotourism, the discussion focuses on environmental aspects, elaborating the indicators into the smallest detail, while other criteria are dealt with in general terms such as "involving the local community".

It seems clear that a lot of work is to be done in this respect. An organizations that has done pioneer work here is SNV that approached tourism from an empowerment perspective.