The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has released a new report that outlines seven basic principles aimed at helping destinations manage the increase in tourism and transform it into shared prosperity for residents, businesses, and travelers.
The entity advocates for proactive and coordinated management, supported by cooperation among public administrations, the private sector, and local communities, in order to ensure that tourism development is truly sustainable.
According to WTTC figures, the travel and tourism industry supports one in ten jobs globally, accounts for around 10% of global GDP, and, just in 2025, contributed 11.6 trillion dollars to the international economy and backed 366 million jobs.
In the report titled "Destination Management: Creating Value for All," the WTTC emphasizes that the success of a destination should not be evaluated solely by the volume of tourists, but also by the satisfaction of the resident population, long-term resilience, and the value that tourism generates for local communities.
The seven principles for better destination management
To advance this approach, the organization proposes seven principles: plan jointly, place resident satisfaction as a success indicator, anticipate growth, improve data usage, diversify activities by seasons and territories, turn tourism into shared prosperity, and strengthen the capacity to respond to future challenges.
The document also includes a series of quick-implementation actions for destinations facing the high season, such as monitoring resident opinions, detecting points of highest tourist pressure through data, promoting lesser-known destinations, encouraging responsible visitor behavior, better communicating the positive impact of tourism, and creating coordinated response teams.
As examples of these strategies, the WTTC highlights cases such as Madrid, for its commitment to de-seasonalization, decentralization, and public-private collaboration; Colorado, for the involvement of residents in tourism planning; Bogotá, for the use of data to improve management; Dubrovnik, for the management of cruise arrivals; New York, for the territorial distribution of tourism activity, and the Balearic Islands, for the reinvestment of tourism revenues in local communities. The report also includes initiatives developed in Copenhagen, Japan, Ljubljana, and South Korea.
The president and CEO of the WTTC, Gloria Guevara, has argued that proper management of destinations can generate employment, strengthen communities, and protect cultural and natural heritage, while advocating for cooperation between governments, the private sector, and local populations to ensure the long-term benefits of tourism.