The third issue of the DSC/GSTC e-quarterly Destination Stewardship Report, Winter 2021, mailed out on 4 February. To get the next e-mail issue, subscribe for free. You can read the following feature stories in this issue live online HERE, with links to these feature stories:

• The Riviera Maya’s Queen of Green: What She’s Learned Mexican activist Beatriz Barreal has worked for years to steer the booming Riviera Maya toward sustainability. Purdue’s Dr. Jonathon Day recently interviewed this one-woman force for improving stewardship to find out what lessons she has learned in the process.

• Even in Affluent Norway, Innkeepers Have Struggled Pandemic closures have left the lodges of the fjords flirting with failure. Arild Molstad reports on one couple who – “showing true viking spirit and eco-courage” – believe they can beat the odds by going greener still. Their story holds a lesson for all destinations.

• Doing It Better: ≠Khoadi-//Hôas, Namibia Namibia’s award-winning ≠Khoadi-//Hôas conservancy has often been cited as a success story in both conservation and community benefit. As part of our ongoing project to profile places with effective, holistic management. Our editor, Jonathan Tourtellot, takes a tourist-eye view of this community-run destination. This is the fifth in the Destination Stewardship Center’s series on collaborative destination management in the spirit of GSTC’s Destination Criterion A1.

• Overtourism and Undertourism Ecotourism specialist Dr. Anna Spenceley has been thinking a lot about the issue of visitor management and overcrowding, limits of acceptable change, and carrying capacity in protected areas. So she wrote a report about it for the World Bank: “Tools for Protected Areas.”

• For some tools in action, read A Taiwanese Island Boosts Tourist Capacity – Sustainably. For 20 years, ecotourists have been eager to tour a biodiverse volcanic island off the coast of Taiwan. But what happens when both locals and tourists complain about the stringent conservation limits on visitation set by government and academics? Monique Chen explains how stakeholders have harmonized ecological carrying capacity and local economics.

• Neolocalism and Tourism Much tourism depends on sense of place, but unchallenged market forces often favor lookalike franchises over more distinctive local businesses. Dr. Christina Cavaliere has co-edited a new multi-author book that makes the case for neolocalism, a movement through which businesses can help destinations retain and deepen their identities, and which also supports Covid recovery. She summarizes the book’s contents.

See the e-mailed version of the Destination Stewardship Report for additional information:

• Announcements, including events (online during the pandemic)
• Publications
• Upcoming webinars

Destination Stewardship Report is an e-mailed quarterly collaboration between the Global Sustainable Tourism Council  and the Destination Stewardship Center. You can read previous issues here:
   Autumn 2020
   Summer 2020 – Inaugural Issue

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