Sustainable tourism in practice: synthesizing sustainability assessment of global tourism destinations

ABSTRACT This paper examines the sustainability characteristics of 12 tourist destinations from around the world to determine whether these destinations have made concrete efforts in balancing the four pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic, social-cultural, and institutional. The paper identifies areas of improvement to abet these destinations facilitate their progress towards achieving sustainability. A three-step approach to destination sustainability assessment was employed: i) development of a sustainability assessment matrix; ii) selecting case studies to illustrate current on the ground sustainability practices; and iii) sustainability performance assessment of the selected destinations. Based on secondary information, the assessment developed and applied a six-scale sustainability performance rating, ranging between −1 to + 1 with − 0.75 to −1 indicating an unsatisfactory, and +0.75 to + 1 indicating a satisfactory performance. Results indicate to the presence of a broad range of sustainability characteristics across geographically diverse locations. Based on the results, six main implications are discussed: i) necessary trade-offs on sustainability considerations; ii) conditionality of sustainability; iii) importance of grassroots engagement and community-led tourism activities; iv) significance of participatory and effective policy preparation and implementation; v) insights on opportunities of active learning and sharing for meeting sustainability objectives; and vi) lessons for mass tourism experiences. We emphasize the need for strategic efforts in balancing sustainability approaches in tourism practices.