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This study compares the Global Sustainable Tourism Council's Criteria (GSTC criteria) with the operations of voluntary statewide sustainable tourism certification programmes in the United States. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) established 37 criteria representing the minimum requirements that any tourism business should reach to protect and sustain the world's natural and cultural resources while ensuring tourism meets its potential as a tool for conservation and poverty alleviation. To determine the extent to which state sustainable tourism certification program participants associate with the GSTC criteria, we visited state certification websites to secure lists of certification program participants. Twenty-three statewide certification program were identified, of which 13 are represented in this study. Using the GSTC criteria, we found respondents' support (to some degree), the GSTC criteria surrounding planning, socio-cultural and environmental aspects of sustainable tourism operations. However, certain criteria were also identified as “not applicable” or in low agreement. These results raise questions of the universal applicability and understanding of some specific aspects of the criteria, including a need for additional education and training, increased access to resources to support operational changes and information. In addition, for some respondents, the relevance of socio-cultural elements to sustainability was not understood, or there was lack of understanding on how to achieve these criteria. The overwhelming congruency with GSTC criteria may be due to a number of factors including, but not limited to the knowledge base of tourism businesses within sustainable tourism operations, and the guidance and support of certification programmes addressing sustainability within the tourism industry.
Bricker et al. (Sat,) studied this question.