The article examines the challenge of measuring the sustainability of tourism destinations in Georgia through the development of an indicator system that aligns the sector’s economic growth with the preservation of natural and cultural capital. The swift post-pandemic recovery of tourism drives the relevance of the topic, the sector’s substantial contribution to the country’s GDP, and the mounting pressures on ecosystems and social structures—pressures that compel national policy to seek a balance between profitability and the conservation of the resource base. The study’s aim is to systematize and adapt international framework documents—UNWTO SF-MST, ETIS, and GSTC-D v2.0—to the Georgian context to construct a four-cluster model of indicators: environmental, sociocultural, economic, and innovation-technological. The novelty of the work lies in combining GEOSTAT and GNTA statistics, corporate ESG reporting, crowdsourced monitoring, and data on cultural diplomacy and smart tourism, which together enable an integrated methodology for sustainability assessment. The key findings prove that the sustainability of tourism in Georgia cannot be measured through detached metrics. Only the simultaneous use of indicators of water and carbon footprints, waste recycling, structure of tourist expenditures, the contribution of small businesses, resident perceptions, and digital innovation can create an adequate picture. These results bring to the limelight distributed monitoring technologies and national digital platforms for sustaining the social legitimacy of tourism as well as protecting the country’s competitive advantages. The article will be helpful for researchers in sustainable tourism, policymakers, regional administrations, and tourism industry stakeholders interested in the practical adaptation of global indicator systems to national and local specificities.
Ekaterine Jikidze (Thu,) studied this question.