Sustainable Tourism Development Strategy (STDS)

Tourism is becoming the most dynamic economic activity in Colombia, but the emerging destinations throughout the country face a problem of unsustainable development. They tend to grow rapidly, without any planning and control. The main concerns are linked with socio-cultural impacts, mostly on traditional communities, and.the unequal distribution of benefits. This book seeks to evaluate potential of an emerging destination on the Caribbean coast of Colombia in order to implement a model for sustainable tourism. The STDS is an integrated approach to destination management that incorporates the socio-cultural, economic, environmental and legal dimensions into a framework based on a multi-stakeholder vision. The methodology combines a collection of primary information to identify the potential of tourism supply, market characteristics, the destination's image, carrying capacity, tourism impacts, host/guest perceptions, local issues and competitiveness. Diverse models and tools were applied in an experimental manner to validate their usefulness in the management of small emerging destinations.