1.2 Explore Motivations and the Need for Leadership on Sustainability

We want to provide you with all the necessary tools and knowledge to guide a workshop with stakeholders.

Through this activity, we want to provide you with all the necessary tools and knowledge to guide a workshop with stakeholders from your destination to be able to identify the challenges and barriers that can be recognised in a variety of aspects that have an effect on tourism.

Through this activity, we want to provide you with all the necessary tools and knowledge to guide a workshop with stakeholders from your destination to be able to identify the challenges and barriers that can be recognised in a variety of aspects that have an effect on tourism.

Through this activity, we want to provide you with all the necessary tools and knowledge to guide a workshop with stakeholders from your destination to be able to identify the challenges and barriers that can be recognised in a variety of aspects that have an effect on tourism. The second part of the activity will allow you to collectively look into some of the actions that may be implemented to solve the identified challenges.

By gathering different perspectives from within your destination, you will be able to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the different issues related to sustainability that need addressing and that your team may not have previously been able to identify.

Before starting the activity, it is important to understand what we mean by sustainable leadership, which is seen as a source of competitive advantage for destinations and organisations for bringing innovation, continuous improvement and long-term success opportunities. The term comprises those behaviours and practices that create lasting value for all stakeholders in the destination at large.

Are you ready to get started? You can complete this exercise by downloading the template below or by clicking on the image above. 👀

Part 1: Brainstorm on the Challenges & Barriers

In the first part of the exercise, which should take around 20 minutes, involve the different stakeholders from your destination which you have gathered (businesses, locals, members from your DMO, etc.) and let everyone ideate and add their thoughts to the different sections of the board.

The idea is to gather different perspectives on the challenges and barriers that affect tourism in the following aspects. In order to better understand the task, we came up with some questions to spark the first ideas.

  • Global: E.g. How is climate change affecting our destination?
  • Local: E.g. Are our activities damaging the destination's biodiversity?
  • Personal: E.g. How am I, as an individual, affected by the lack of sustainable practices in the destination?
  • Political: E.g. How are regulations and policies hindering us?
  • Community: E.g. How is our use of available resources impacting future generations?
  • Environmental: E.g. Are we managing our water resources appropriately?
  • Commercial: E.g. Do businesses have the financial resources to become more sustainable?

Part 2: Draw conclusions & define concrete outcomes and actions

This part second part of the activity should take approximately 15 minutes, and again, together with all the stakeholders, you should discuss how sustainable development might be lead in the destination. This should be done by defining concrete actions that could be implemented to achieve specific outcomes in regards to the different aspects that the ideation process has looked at.

By looking for solutions together, we'll be able to develop a much more integrated sustainable strategy for the destination and develop actionable and realistic outcomes.


Through this activity, we want to provide you with all the necessary tools and knowledge to guide a workshop with stakeholders from your destination to be able to identify the challenges and barriers that can be recognised in a variety of aspects that have an effect on tourism.