In response to thoughts and questions received directly about the GSTC as well as those posted online in various e-forums, we  write this open letter as a way to offer some clarity to the process of establishing the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria and address occasionally voiced misconceptions.

The Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC Partnership) and the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (STSC) recently merged to form a new initiative slated to launch in 2010 called the Tourism Sustainability Council. At their core, the two share the same mission of education and awareness raising, stimulating and rewarding improved sustainability performance in tourism, and meeting consumer and market demand for more sustainable options when people travel.

We recognize that the GSTC are not the only solution to meet the challenges and opportunities of sustainability and responsibility in tourism. We believe that sustainable tourism can only be achieved through integrated approaches that engage travelers, tourism businesses across the supply chain, governments, certification programs, media, local communities, and civil society—all of which have a role to play in protecting and sustaining the world’s natural and cultural resources while ensuring that tourism meets its potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.

The GSTC were designed to help contribute to this broader goal by harmonizing, simplifying, and communicating a summary framework to define simply (the criteria) and with some more detailed guidance (the indicators) the breadth of aspects which need to be addressed for a tourism enterprise to achieve sustainability. The GSTC focuses on the enterprise level on the basis that it is important for individual business to have a framework for what they need to achieve.

The criteria’s success depends on their universality, so great pains were taken to get as much stakeholder input as we could over the course of the 18 months that the GSTC were developed. We strove for transparency and broad public input, which included a review and analysis of more than 4,500 criteria already in use, outreach to over 80,000 tourism stakeholders, input from approximately 2,000 experts, and the engagement of an international Steering Committee.  The results of the consultation process show that the approval rate was no less than 91% for any one criterion, and more than 90% of our respondents were confident that the GSTC, as a whole, addressed all aspects of tourism that are required for a business to be sustainable and were globally relevant and appropriate.

We believe that sustainable practices provide a tangible return on investment for those businesses that adopt them, whether this is achieved through certification programs or other actions. Many studies have shown that implementing sustainability measures can lead to an improved bottom line for a business due to increased efficiencies (such as energy, water, and waste), improved employee morale and retention, and the ability to access the growing demographic of local and global travelers that are looking for sustainable options. 

We acknowledge that oftentimes, however, sustainable tourism businesses struggle to reach market recognition for these commitments.   The work of the future Tourism Sustainability Council will help reward sustainable businesses. We are looking at building business-to-business solutions based on a common understanding of sustainable tourism. We are also working to assemble, develop, and distribute educational materials and technical tools to guide hotels and tour operators through the process of implementing sustainable tourism best practices.  Finally, the criteria will contribute significantly to the establishment of a new global accreditation process that will, in essence, “certify the certifiers.”  Through this accreditation program, consumers, the media, travel agencies, and others will be better armed to distinguish between the green-doers and the green-washers. In recognition of the GSTC’s impact to date,many tourism businesses, industry associations, and travel distributors have taken the first step at endorsing the criteria as a basis to build their sustainable tourism programs and by extension will be able to feature travel businesses that are aligned with the GSTC.

The Tourism Sustainability Council will continue to be an open forum for any organization to join and voice their contributions. We are confident that more than sixty partners that we work with around the globe– tourism businesses, conservationists, UN agencies, governments, and non-governmental organizations – that have already joined and endorsed the TSC share our belief that the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria constitute the best baseline developed to date regarding sustainability for tourism businesses.

We look forward to keeping the dialogue open and fostering constructive discussion with any and all individuals and organizations to work towards our common goals of sustainability.

With best regards,

Ronald Sanabria            Charles Arden-Clarke       Erika Harms                 Luigi Cabrini

Rainforest Alliance         UNEP                                   UN Foundation             UNWTO