Policy recommendations and Codes of Conduct

At many levels policy recommendations and Codes of Conductfor governments and assistance organisations were established over the past years, all of them representing the interests of the stakeholders that were involved in drafting them. The WTO has developed its Global Code of Ethics, which is a reflection of the interests of how its members, governments and businesses view their responsibilities in the development of sustainable tourism.

The Code of Conduct developed by Forum Anders Reisen was one of the first in its kind coming from the NGO sector. Following this Code, in preparation of the UNCSD-7 in 1999, NGOs formulated policy recommendations for local governments, national governments, multilateral governmental bodies, the UN CSD, assistance agencies  and entrepreneurs. These were inputs for the negotiations by governments that resulted in a final report on sustainable tourism which according to many offers good and realistic recommendations to all stakeholders. Following these policy recommendations, on a more critical note, European NGOs issued a Red Card for tourism which offers a warning for the consequences of unsustainable tourism development. They were input for the World Ecotourism Summit in 2002 in that resulted in the Quebec declaration on Ecotourism that includes guidelines, specified for all stakeholders.

Also methods for more sustainable planning were developed.