Gianna Moscardo, the current BEST EN Chair, is a member of the Sustainability Leaders Expert Panel, which regularly provides insights into key tourism and sustainability topics and issues.  This month’s issue was how to make destinations more sustainable.  The following is a summary of prof. Moscardo’s interview.

• Get more diverse community representatives on tourism planning and development committees and boards – expand to people from welfare agencies and people who are advocates for a wide range of different sectors within the community, not just tourism business and government agencies.
• Do some research to establish what is positive about residents’ current well-being – for instance, what do they value right now about their community that should be protected, what well-being needs do they have (what specific things they need right now – like better healthcare, or more public transport) and what their aspirations are for the future. Use these to guide decisions about what type of tourism to pursue.
• So the whole planning and development process should be driven by community needs and goals, not business and market opportunities.
• See tourism as a tool for the destination community, not the destination community as a resource for tourism. It is a simple but subtle distinction that makes a great deal of difference.

  Other sustainability leader insights can be found at https://sustainability-leaders.com/how-to-make-destinations-sustainable/

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