For a Better World:

Sustainable Tourism

UN Tourism (formerly the World Tourism Organization) defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” Compared to other formulas for environmentally friendly tourism, including green travel, ecotravel, environmental travel, low-carbon travel, and ecotourism, sustainable tourism emphasizes a three-way balance involving tourism, city promotion, and economic development.

Following the declaration by the World Tourism Organization (now UN Tourism) that 2017 would be the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, sustainable tourism began to take off. Taiwan is today one of the world’s frontrunners in this field.

The time is ripe for sustainability

Monique Chen, cofounder and chairwoman of Sustainable Tourism Taiwan (STT), has much to say on the topic of how Taiwan reached its current level of success in the area of sustainable tourism. Since she and a group of like-minded friends founded the NGO in 2011, they have been working to promote sustainable travel.

Chen says that when they started out, they met with considerable resistance. However, as they continued to work behind the scenes, by 2016 Taiwan proved to be just the right place at the right time with the right people.

At that time, having built up a network of contacts over many years, STT became the sole agent in Taiwan of the Netherlands-based NGO Green Destinations. At the Green Destinations Global Conference 2016, STT helped the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area and the Amis indigenous community of Cilamitay in Hualien to enter the 2016 Green Destinations Top 100 Stories competition, with both winning awards.

Thanks to years of effort by Monique Chen and a group of like-minded partners, in 2016 Taiwan finally jumped on the sustainable tourism bandwagon. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Simple? Not!

From 2016 through 2024, Taiwan has continued to submit locations for consideration for the Top 100 Green Destinations. But Monique Chen reveals that after receiving Green Destination certification, getting selected as one of the top 100 “is not as simple as you might think.”

Chen quotes the words of Albert Salman, founder of Green Destinations: “The destinations we really want to select are those that have the most heart and aim to always be better today than they were yesterday.”

Chen notes that item A7 of the Destination Criteria of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), which covers “promotion and information,” requires that: “Promotion and visitor information material about the destination is accurate with regard to its products, services, and sustainability claims.” Moreover, when advertising, sustainable destinations should indicate the concrete quantifiable and nonquantifiable effects and outcomes of sustainability actions on the environment and economy. If claims made are merely slogans without real action, or are excessively abstract, then they will be rejected by the international community.

For destinations that face excessive tourism, the best solution may be sustainable tourism, which balances the needs of the environment, the economy, and culture. The photo shows a Moonlight Sea Concert in Taitung. (courtesy of East Coast National Scenic Area Administration)

Sustainability is Taiwan’s brand

When Chen meets with enterprises or government agencies to talk about certification or competing for awards, she always reminds her counterparts: “Sustainability is not a one-off.”

“Fortunately,” she avers, “Taiwan has many conscientious civil servants, and superiors who are willing to support them.” The management teams of scenic areas under the Tourism Administration (formerly the Tourism Bureau), which have won awards year by year, owe these successes to the unity of purpose of the entire organization from top to bottom.

Chen adds, “Taiwan should see the Green Destinations conference as a platform for managing the country’s international image.” She says the conference is a venue for countries to market themselves to each ­other’s citizens, and each example of sustainable tourism not only helps market the nation but also helps establish the Taiwan brand.

However, she emphasizes that “winning first place” is not what sustainability is about. “If you see someone claiming ‘I am the most sustainable,’ then that is someone who doesn’t really understand sustainability.” “The common good” is the most important term within the sustainability discourse.

The practice of traditional beach seine fishing is preserved in New Taipei City’s Wanli District. It invigorates local society and enables the development of experiential travel. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Making Taiwan an international partner

Monique Chen states: “Sustainability cannot be achieved just by the actions of a single country, because it involves the whole planet, so if you want things to be good in any one place they have be good all over the world.” As Taiwan has made outstanding progress in the realm of sustainable tourism, it has shared its experiences with its diplomatic partners and other friendly nations.

Since 1997 the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) has continually offered specialized training classes to equip international friends and allies with expertise in various fields. In view of the international trend towards sustainability in recent years, TaiwanICDF has begun offering a Workshop on Ecotourism. The 2024 workshop attracted government officials and people in related fields from 23 countries.

Alongside specialized classes offered by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), the fund’s secretary general, Charles C. Li (standing, right), personally delivered a lecture to introduce Taiwan and the TaiwanICDF to international visitors. (courtesy of the TaiwanICDF)

Sustainable friendships

“In terms of sustainable tourism, Taiwan is going higher and higher,” says Khwanruetai Yodviengchai, an officer in the Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration under the Tourism Innovation ­Development Division of the Tourist Authority of Thailand, who has come to Taiwan for the workshop. She hopes to learn from case studies of sustainable tourism in Taiwan, and especially about controlling the flow of visitors. She is particularly impressed with the capacity management plan for Guishan Island adopted by the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area in 2022.

Kimberly De Leon, a subregional delegate in the Touristic Product Development Direction of the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism, states that the Pacific coast under their jurisdiction likewise faces the problem of over­tourism. “I see [the workshop] as a good opportunity to come and learn, and then go to my country and implement the strategies that will help us have more sustainable tourism.” She further states that in the future she will share what she has learned in Taiwan with her colleagues and spread the notion of sustainability throughout her country. “Learning about what’s been the path to sustainability in Taiwan, it makes me think that we are on the right path too.”