Destination Stewardship: Reimagining the Purpose of Tourism in Outdoor Communities

The tourism industry in resort, rural, recreation, and gateway communities is driven by outdoor recreation activities on public lands and waters. Public lands and waters provide refuge for endangered species, protect water quality, act as carbon sinks, and are increasingly popular with new and established outdoor recreation users. And this popularity is creating big city challenges in the small communities that surround these public lands. This includes affordable housing and short-term rental dynamics; infrastructure, traffic and congestion; strained public and environmental resources; and under-funded land managers having to tackle overuse impacts and climate change realities. Now, more than ever, our community stakeholders need to reimagine the purpose of tourism. Tourism can no longer be solely an economic goal; it needs to become a purposeful tool that invests in the stewardship of outdoor assets that are used by visitors and residents alike.

For nearly twenty years, sustainable tourism has been a concept for private industry to balance their triple bottom line. More recently, there is a call for tourism to do more than just sustain, highlighting a growing need for regenerative best practices. In destinations around the world, tourism stakeholders are convening with municipality managers, land managers, civic groups, and local residents to address issues around common pool resources which, if diminished, impact the entire community. This is known as destination stewardship and has been successful as a transformative model to improve quality of life attributes, enhance visitor experience, and safeguard a sense of place.

Learning Objectives:

• Importance of public lands and waters for economic development
• Challenges facing outdoor communities
• Why sustainability tourism is an important concept
• How destination stewardship can leverage community connections
• Successful projects utilizing destination stewardship concepts