The Pillar of Sustainability in the Spanish Smart Tourism Destination (DTI) Model

Being sustainable is a priority for any tourism destination aiming to be competitive. The chapter reviews the sustainability concept, addressing the main challenges that DMOs must face to achieve it. It also explains how the Spanish Smart Tourism Destination Model responds to these challenges, with a methodology based on a process of continuous enhancement, defining and measuring sustainability requirements in destinations, and providing recommendations for improvement. Due to the great relevance of the sustainable tourism management of destinations, environmental, economic and social impacts, this pillar has the greatest weight of all the pillars of the DTI Model, with its requirements representing about 40% of the total of the model. This pillar integrates four key areas of action: Tourism sustainability managerial tools; Conservation, recovery and enhancement of cultural heritage; Conservation and enhancement of the environment and, Socio-economic development and circular economy. Finally, by areas of action, this chapter details the requirements and indicators of the sustainability pillar together with the main recommendations, associated with each of the areas of the pillar, useful for destinations implementing the DTI model in terms of sustainability.