GSTC Industry Standard
for Hotels & Tour Operators

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Criteria were created to provide a common understanding throughout the world of “sustainable tourism”, and are the minimum that any tourism business should aspire to reach. They are organized around four main themes: effective sustainability planning, maximizing social and economic benefits for the local community, enhancing cultural heritage, and reducing negative impacts to the environment. They have applicability to the entire tourism industry.

The GSTC Standards (known previously as GSTC Criteria) are developed based on GSTC Standard Setting Manual v3.0, where the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Sustainability Systems is used as a reference. The ISEAL Alliance is the body recognized to provide guidance on international norms for developing sustainability standards in all sectors.

The GSTC Industry Standard (GSTC-I, known previously as GSTC Industry Criteria) is the 3rd version of the GSTC Standard for the Tourism Industry. The first version (GSTC-H&TOv1) was released in 2008, and the second version (GSTC-H&TOv2) was released in 2012. The Revision Report is available for those that wish to examine the main changes made from the H&TOv2 Criteria to the Industry Standard.

Some of the uses of the standard include the following:

• Serve as the basis for certification for sustainability
• Serve as basic guidelines for businesses of all sizes to become more sustainable, and help businesses choose sustainable tourism programs that fulfill these global standards
• Provide greater market access in the growing market for sustainable products, serving as guidance both for travelers and for travel agencies in choosing suppliers and sustainable tourism programmes
• Help consumers identify sound sustainable tourism programs and businesses
• Serve as a common denominator for information media to recognize sustainable tourism providers
• Help certification and other voluntary programs ensure that their standards meet a broadly-accepted baseline
• Offer governmental, non-governmental, and private sector programs a starting point for developing sustainable tourism requirements
• Serve as basic guidelines for education and training bodies, such as hotel schools and universities
• Demonstrate leadership that inspires others to act

The GSTC Standards indicate what should be done, not how to do it or whether the goal has been achieved. This role is fulfilled by performance indicators, associated educational materials, and access to tools for implementation, all of which are an indispensable complement to the GSTC Standards.

GSTC Destination Standard

The GSTC Destination Standard, relates to sustainable management of Tourism Destinations.
GSTC Destination Standard

GSTC MICE Standard

The GSTC MICE Standard, relates to sustainable management of Venues, Event Organizers and Events & Exhibitions.
GSTC MICE Standard

GSTC Attraction Standard

The GSTC Attractions Standard, relates to sustainable management attractions such as theme parks, museums, and national parks.
GSTC Attraction Standard

GSTC Standards Translations

The GSTC Standards are used for a variety of applications (education and awareness-raising, policy-making for businesses and government agencies and other organization types, measurement and evaluation, and as a basis for certification). Therefore, the GSTC Standards  have been translated into many languages, available to the public to download on the GSTC website:
Translations of the GSTC Standards in other languages

Sustainable Tourism Glossary

GSTC has compiled a glossary in order to combat possible confusion as well as provide additional clarity to many of the concepts illustrated in the GSTC Standards.
GSTC Sustainable Tourism Glossary: Definitions of Important Terms

Commercial use of the GSTC Standards

The GSTC encourages broad use and application of the GSTC Standards, which are available from this website free of charge for their non-commercial use. However, the GSTC reserves the right to assess and charge fees for the commercial use of the GSTC Standards.