Sigtuna and Kosterhavet-Ytre Hvaler NP included in Global Top 100 Sustainable Destinations

For the first time ever, a Sustainable Destinations Global Top 100 has been created to celebrate the management efforts of the hundred most sustainable destinations on Earth. The Top 100 is the result of open calls in the social media, and of a selection process by 30 international experts in tourism sustainability. This Top 100 has 100 winners, not just one. It does not provide for a ranking from 1 to 100. Destinations can be ranked in different ways in the website. However, the destination to be considered most sustainable of all is the region of the Azores, because it has the highest sustainability score (GSTR). The Swedish destinations included in the selection are Sigtuna and (partly Norwegian) Kosterhavet-Ytre Hvaler National Park.

The Global Top 100 is a joint initiative of TravelMole.com, Vision on Sustainable Tourism, Totem Tourism, and Green Destinations. It aims to recognise tourism destinations that have worked hard to make a difference and take sustainability seriously. Nevertheless, no destination is sustainable for the full 100%. This is why the authors present ratings of overall destination sustainability according to the only available global assessment tool for this purpose: the Global Sustainable Tourism Review (GSTR).

The publication also presents the scores that the Green Destinations Selection Panel members have given to destinations’ performance on six key criteria: Nature, Environment, Culture & Tradition, Social well-being, Green Economy and certified Green Tourism Policy. The latter criterion, corresponding to certification using the GSTC destination criteria, is given the highest weight of all criteria. The Top 100 includes all certified destinations of QualityCoast, Biosphere and EarthCheck.

GSTR: a global sustainability scoring system

Many destinations of the Top 100 show GSTR-scores. The GSTR is a widely agreed global index for destination sustainability, assessed through the Global Sustainable Tourism Review (GSTR). GSTR reports on destinations from a client's point of view. So the Top 100 is compiled with input from clients, professionals and certifiers. The GSTR score takes the destinations’ performance into account in 40-60 fields, covering the same six criteria of the Top 100. It covers business efforts in the destinations, but does obviously not include the CO₂ emission of travel to the destination. Meanwhile, GSTR scores of an ever-expanding global collection of destinations will be updated on a monthly basis and published by GreenDestinations.info.

The Top 100 selection can be found in: www.greendestinations.info.