A Framework For Stewardship From WTTC
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) released a new report outlining how destinations can grow responsibly, using the Destination Stewardship model.
The report was launched in partnership with the Travel Foundation and the European Tourism Futures Institute (ETFI) at NHL Stenden University, in the Netherlands.
‘Towards Destination Stewardship: Achieving Destination Stewardship through scenarios & a Governance Diagnostics framework’ lays out how destinations can balance the needs of visitors and residents, with the involvement of both the public and private sector.
Destination Stewardship is based on the responsible use of shared or ‘common pool’ resources, which provide diminished benefits if each individual participant or group pursues their own self-interest.
The WTTC report offers scenarios and ways forward for organizations such as Tourism Ministries and Destination Management Organizations that seek to better understand how changes in governance structures could support greater destination stewardship.
It presents four Destination Stewardship scenarios, based on varying levels of engagement from the public and private sector, which show how differing levels of support can produce different outcomes with the aim of creating a commonsense roadmap towards greater stewardship.
Destination stewardship requires a shared understanding of the common good, and effective platforms for collaboration with shared objectives and measurements of success that go beyond traditional growth metrics, such as visitor arrivals and overall spend.
These new models of collaboration must deliver on market expectations while at the same time also supporting the needs of host communities.
