2025-07-14
Recently, the WTA·Silk Road Dialogue was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. During this event, the World Tourism Alliance (WTA) and UN Tourism jointly released the comprehensive report titled "Developing Local Communities through Sustainable Tourism Development Roadmap". Mr. Jaime Mayaki, Director of Technical Cooperation and Silk Road Department at UN Tourism, delivered a keynote presentation on the key findings of the report. The key takeaways from the address are as follows:
One key takeaway from recent global public health crises is the vital importance of cultivating balanced tourism markets. Destinations with strong domestic tourism sectors not only weathered economic challenges more effectively during crises but also experienced faster recovery as travel restrictions were lifted.
Promoting balanced tourism development requires improved infrastructure accessibility, offering high-quality tourism products, empowering local communities, enhancing community involvement, and establishing long-term sustainability goals. The joint report by UN Tourism and WTA aims to identify, analyze, and assess global best practices in community-based resilient tourism development.
The report presents key research findings, featuring five international and five Chinese case studies. It highlights how destinations can develop attractive, competitive, and sustainable tourism industries, providing valuable development guidance and intellectual support for local communities and tourism stakeholders.
Today’s fast-paced global information exchange has transformed destination evaluation into a continuous, individual-driven, integrated system. In this context, clearer developmental guidelines are essential to help destinations fully capitalize on the benefits of knowledge-sharing.
Addressing rapidly changing market conditions, the report presents systematic solutions that encompass community participation, resource assessment, capacity building, and tourism product development. It underscores critical elements such as stakeholder collaboration and financial sustainability, ensuring alignment with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The report presents ten real-world case studies spanning geographically from China to Colombia, with additional insights from India, Malaysia, Mauritius, and Switzerland. The findings clearly demonstrate that seemingly contradictory elements—such as sustainability versus profitability, heritage conservation versus tourism development, and top-down versus bottom-up approaches—can naturally complement and enhance one another.
From a methodological perspective, the report emphasizes thoroughness and systematic analysis. First, it conducts extensive literature reviews to examine prior community tourism initiatives, identifying key success factors and common challenges. Second, a systematic sustainability appraisal assesses tourism products, policy instruments, operational practices, and emerging innovation trends. Third, data for the ten cases was primarily gathered through stakeholder interviews—via video calls for remote areas and in-person interviews where possible. To ensure research accuracy, structured questionnaires were distributed to community members, supplemented by focus group discussions and field visits. The report combines theoretical insights with practical experience, providing valuable guidance for global tourism stakeholders to develop tourism products sustainably.
The context of this report is set against the backdrop of the current global development landscape, where the promotion of sustainable tourism has become an unavoidable trend. The Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism has set a clear target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Concurrently, UN Tourism has established the International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO), dedicated to monitoring the economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism destinations, while actively working to integrate tourism into the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this environment, the tourism industry faces a pivotal choice: proactively transform and embrace sustainable development, or risk contributing to the problem—ultimately threatening its own long-term viability.
A new societal system of evaluation, incentives, and constraints is gradually taking shape. This includes measures such as restrictions on short-haul flights, impending bans on single-use plastics, increased energy and water efficiency, and widespread debates on over-tourism. Throughout this transition, UN Tourism has been at the forefront, assisting member states in making the shift toward sustainable tourism practices. The release of this report represents a key milestone in UN Tourism’s ongoing efforts to facilitate knowledge-sharing and research dissemination.
In addition, UN Tourism is actively collaborating with the Dominican Republic and Guatemala on multi-year projects, assisting with the development of new sustainable tourism policies and strategies. These initiatives focus on safeguarding cultural heritage, empowering local communities, and fostering private-sector growth. In 2024, during the inaugural joint session of the UN Tourism Regional Commissions for Africa and the Americas, participating leaders collectively signed the Punta Cana Declaration. This declaration reflects their shared commitment to advancing sustainable development through tourism, with strategic investments, education, innovation, and creative industries identified as key areas for collaboration. Furthermore, UN Tourism is conducting community research on Thassos Island in Greece, implementing sustainable tourism strategies in Tajikistan, and promoting ecotourism initiatives in Uzbekistan’s Khorezm region.
In conclusion, UN Tourism is dedicated to supporting member states across all critical domains—socio-cultural, ecological, and economic—to achieve sustainable development. Let us unite, harness the momentum, and work together to advance resilient local communities and promote sustainable tourism growth.