Destination sustainability

Destinations are at the core of tourism activity, as they bring together the communities and businesses involved in tourism production with the consumer who visits the 'place' in search for positive experiences. Sustainable destinations recognise that substantial planning, design and management is required to ensure that net outcomes from tourism visitation are positive and do not undermine the integrity of local communities and environments.

3 Good health and well-being5 Gender equality8 Decent work and economic growth11 Sustainable cities and communities12 Responsible consumption and production17 Partnerships for the goals

Sustainable Development Goals

Griffith's Institute for Tourism is aligned with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs ) and committed to tackling global challenges in sustainable tourism including decent work and economic growth, gender equity and inclusion, environmental health and sustainability, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and partnerships for the goals.

INCLUSIVE TOURISM

Gender equality is identified as one of the United Nation Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG 5). UNWTO is committed to this goal, which is to empower women in tourism. GIFT researcher, Dr Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore is the Regional Expert (Asia & The Pacific) of UNWTO 2018 Global Report on Women in Tourism. She and her team conducts various scoping studies and consultancy work on gender equality and the empowerment of women as workers and providers in tourism. They also develop and facilitate training programmes for the hospitality and tourism industries.

Further reading: Assessing gender representation in knowledge production: a critical analysis of UNWTO’s planned events

Sustainable Destination Partnership

Sustainable Sydney 2030 is a vision and plan for the development of a Green, Global and Connected city.  Sustainable Sydney 2030 is  the City's local response to the UN Sustainable development Goals and the Paris Global Climate Agreement both of which Australia is a signatory to.

Griffith University has signed a MoU with the City of Sydney to help the City plan for environmental sustainability in the accommodation and entertainment sector.

HARTT: HEALTHY AGEING IN RURAL TOURISM TOWNS

This program addresses the challenge of ageing in rural tourism destinations. Through national and international comparative case studies, the project explores the nexus between the strategic planning that targets the elderly and tourism. The main goal is to identify the health and well-being co-benefits to the elderly that can be derived from tourism, and produce a new responsive urban and social planning model that would inform evidence based knowledge, policy and practice. The study has the following objectives:

  1. to characterise the patterns of movement of elderly residents of rural tourism destinations,
  2. to undertake a needs assessment of this population
  3. to undertake a spatial analysis of their needs,
  4. to map existing facilities, infrastructures, and access to technologies
  5. to analyse the economics of tourism development in relation to aged care planning.
  6. Research

Chief investigator: A/Prof Karine Dupre

Resource conservation

Resource conserving offers tourism, and society at large, a new paradigm in sustainable lifestyles. It involves a variety of deliberate behaviours like choosing to consume less, reducing waste by better planning and applying no/low carbon methods for thermal comfort.  It greatly improve sustainable tourism futures in its own right, because guests’ behaviours can be adapted to make more responsible choices at times of consumption.

Tourism Planning in Natural world heritage areas

A project undertaken for UNESCO investigated the extent to which natural World Heritage Areas engage in tourism planning. The study follows an expert workshop on "Economic impacts of tourism in Protected Areas", held from 21–25 September 2015 at the UNESCO-Wadden Sea World Heritage Visitor Center in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. It also relates to the Global Sustainable Tourism Dashboard indicator of tourism planning in protected areas.

Key findings indicated that tourism planning across World Heritage Areas needs to be improved and more consistent methods of visitor monitoring are necessary.

Project team: Professor Susanne Becken and Cassie Wardle

ANALYSIS OF ULURU VISITOR CLIMB DATA AND MONITORING METHODS

The Griffith Institute for Tourism was commissioned by Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to analyse track monitoring data to assess the proportion of visitors climbing Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the Northern Territory. Uluru is a World Heritage-listed site, and is a sacred place of great natural and cultural significance. Although visitors are strongly discouraged to climb Uluru, many still do. This study aimed to better understand specific visitor behaviour trends in protected areas

Lead researcher: Professor Susanne Becken

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