For those whose work or interests involve improving destination stewardship in a post-pandemic world, you may have read the e-quarterly Destination Stewardship Report that was first published in the summer of last year.

Curated into one document, the Destination Stewardship Report’s Annual Yearbook is based on the quarterly issues co-produced by the Destination Stewardship Center (DSC) and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC).

Sharing “lessons learned” is the purpose of this yearbook. The Destination Stewardship Yearbook features destinations from around the globe with many good stories to tell about what has worked in their journey toward sustainability. Stories that other practitioners of destination stewardship can learn from.

We began in the middle of a pandemic, an odd but telling time. The world was going through a forced experiment: What happens when tourism – especially international tourism – stops dead?

A new baseline was being set, and with it came surprises. A second question, of course, can be phrased as “What’s the best way to recover as the pandemic begins to recede?” – a process still underway at this writing,” says Jonathan Tourtellot, CEO of Destination Stewardship Center and Editor of the Destination Stewardship Report.

“As for the best way to recover, we’ve endeavored to profile places that already set good examples. We’ve addressed the critical importance of GSTC’s Destination Criterion A1 on holistic destination management – a fundamental yet frequently ignored requirement worldwide. We’ve offered profiles of places that are succeeding in our “Doing It Better” series, and places well on their way to success, as in the Italian Dolomites. We hope these models will, in whole or in part, help other places move toward more sustainable management of the intersection between tourism and host communities.”

“We invite all destination managers throughout the world to learn from these stories and encourage them to join the discussion by sharing with others what has worked – and even a bit of openness on what has not always worked so well,” says Randy Durband, GSTC CEO. “We hope you learn from, use, and share the knowledge provided. Here’s to ever-more sustainable tourism to destinations managed and cared for by committed stewards!”

Read the Destination Stewardship Yearbook 2020-2021

The Destination Stewardship Center (DSC) is a volunteer nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the world’s distinctive places by supporting wisely managed tourism and enlightened destination stewardship. Founded as a program at the National Geographic Society, the DSC gathers and provides information on how tourism can help and not harm the natural, cultural, and social quality of destinations around the world. We seek to build a global community and knowledge network for advancing this goal.