The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) is encouraging proactive and holistic destination stewardship as international tourism continues to grow. It is an approach designed ensure that tourism creates lasting value for residents, businesses and visitors alike.
And when managed proactively, the WTTC believes that tourism growth provides significant opportunities and with stronger planning, collaboration with residents and evidence-based decision-making, destinations can build a tourism model that supports communities’ day-to-day wellbeing while unlocking the full economic and social benefits of Travel & Tourism.
To support this approach, WTTC has published a concise and practical policy brief, Destination Stewardship: Creating Value for All, setting out seven principles to help destinations plan for sustainable growth, protect the character of the places people visit, and ensure the benefits of tourism are shared more widely. Recognizing that many destinations are already in peak travel season, the brief includes “quick actions” that can be implemented now to help monitor pressures, support residents, and enhance the visitor experience this summer.
Travel and tourism is one of the world’s most powerful economic sectors, supporting one in every 10 jobs globally, generating around 10% of global GDP, and expected to create one in every three new jobs over the coming decade. In 2025 alone, the sector contributed US$11.6 trillion to the global economy and supported 366 million jobs worldwide.
WTTC believes the conversation around tourism must move beyond visitor numbers and towards how destinations manage growth. Successful destinations are those that plan collaboratively and in advance, measure resident satisfaction, use better data, diversify tourism across seasons and locations, reinvest tourism revenues into local communities, and prepare for future challenges before they emerge.
At the heart of the framework are seven destination stewardship principles:
- Plan together, grow together
- Make resident satisfaction the measure of success
- Plan ahead
- Understand the issue
- More places, more seasons, more value
- Turn tourism into shared prosperity
- Be ready to respond
Central to the framework is a shift in how destinations define success, not simply by visitor arrivals, but by resident satisfaction, long-term resilience, and the value tourism creates for local communities.
Gloria Guevara, President & CEO, WTTC, observed that: “When destinations are managed well, travel and tourism creates jobs, strengthens communities, protects cultural and natural heritage, and delivers lasting prosperity.”
Guevara continued: “Destination stewardship succeeds when governments, local communities and the private sector work together with a shared vision for long-term success. Our seven principles provide a practical framework that destinations can adapt to their own needs, helping ensure tourism continues to deliver benefits for everyone.”
Alongside its long-term recommendations, the report provides destinations with practical actions that can be implemented immediately. These include monitoring resident sentiment, mapping tourism pressure points using better data, promoting lesser-known destinations, encouraging responsible visitor behaviour, communicating tourism’s benefits more effectively to local communities, and establishing coordinated response teams in advance.
