The goal of development in a country or in a region specifically, in essence is to create a

prosperous community. Tourism as one sector that can significantly build the economy of
a region should be prioritized to be develop by the government in order to achieve the
goal of development itself. Because a developed tourism will increase the number of
tourist arrivals, and tourist arrival will stimulate social interaction with local citizen and
simultaneously will boost the economy (I Gde Pirana, 2005). Essentially, there are 4 (four)
things that being affected by tourism sector: economy, social, culture, and environment
(Yoeti, 2008). Even if it is generally understood that tourism causes positive impact such
as bring in foreign exchange income, job creation, and economic increase, but tourism
might also cause the otherwise. The most prominent examples of negative impact of
tourism is environmental damages because of non-environmental friendly activities and
changes in attitudes and behavior due to direct contact with tourists who come from
different cultures (Pendit, 1990). Therefore, in order for a country to consistently improve
their tourism sector to achieve its huge benefits while at the same time reduce its negative
impact, an integrated planning of tourism development is critically needed through a
harmonious cooperation and participation from all the stakeholders.

In 1987, World Commission on Environment and Development (WCAD) stated the first
definition of what is ‘Sustainable Development’. Through the WCAD Brunlad Report on
1987, it is defined that: “Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs
of present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs”
(Abdilah Fitra, 2001). In the course of time, the concept of sustainable development is
adopted into the tourism sector. Therefore, the big ideas from the world discussion about
what is a good tourism, comes down to this notion: Sustainable Tourism. Sustainable
Tourism is a tourism that is not seen merely an economic activity, but also a sector that
can maintain sustainability of the local environment with regard to the social and culture
of local community, with the long term goal of keeping the tourist destination could also
be enjoyed by the future generation (Neto, 2003). In other words, sustainable tourism
development, must be able to manage and develop all the environmental qualities of
tourist destinations and cultural heritage and ensure tourism activities and economic
distribution to the community at large and in the long term (Suwena, 2010).

Depart from this issue, Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is established in the
effort to achieve general understanding about the sustainable tourism throughout the
people of the world. GSTC as an international body that have a mission to become a
global baseline standard for sustainable tourism formulated some criteria that serves as
the minimum standard for tourism stakeholders—may it be government or private
sector—when assessing the sustainability of their activities. These criteria stand as a
holistic and integrated goals with the interdisciplinary approach, which are (GSTC, 2017):
1.) Demonstrating sustainable destination management (Sustainable Management);
2.) Maximize economic benefits for local communities (Socioeconomic Impacts);
3.) Maximizing benefits for the community and visitors in the context of culture
(Cultural Impacts); and
4.) Maximizing environmental benefits including usage of resources, contamination
pollution management, and conservation of biodiversity (Environmental Impacts).
These criteria above are the 4 main pillars of GSTC Sustainable Tourism that has its own
derivative specific criteria in each of the main pillar. GSTC Sustainable Tourism criteria
were made to fit all kinds and all scale of destination, it was established based on
accepted approaches and baseline, including: Sustainable Tourism Indicators and
Destination Management from United Nations of World Tourism Organization (UNWTO),
GSTC Criteria for Hotel and Tour Operator, recognized principles, guidelines, criteria,
indicators and best-practice from various culture and geo-political context differentiation
worldwide (GSTC, Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria, 2013).

The implementation of the GSTC Criteria is handled and supervised by the Global
Sustainable Tourism Council itself, with an expected output from this criteria being
implemented are but not limited to: (GSTC, Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria,
2013)
 Present as a basic guide for destinations that want to be sustainable;
 Helping travelers and visitors identify tourism destinations that promote
sustainability;
 Functioning as a general guide for the press and media to identify places and
provide information to the public in terms of sustainability efforts;
 Assisting destination certification and programs to assess whether that their
standards meet the general requirements that are widely accepted;
 Providing government, non-government and private sector programs as a starting
point to develop sustainable tourism requirements; and
 Serves as source of information for educational institutions, such as hospitality
schools and universities.

As an international or supranational body, GSTC is legally registered as a non-profit

organization that are independent and neutral that consists of numerous national and
provincial governments, NGOs, UN agencies, hotels, tour and travel companies, sporadic
communities and also individuals that are relevant in tourism industry, that all is striving
towards one goal: best practices in sustainable tourism (GSTC, 2018). GSTC plays a
critical role in the sustainable tourism industry, they perform as the Global Accreditation
Body for Certification Programs that issued the certificate of sustainable activities such
as having policies that support the sustainable practice for hotels, tour and travel
agencies, and also destinations (GSTC, 2018).

However, there are an issue that rising up lately in related to what the GSTC do. As per
May 2017, currently there are more than 300 institutions that offers different programs of
sustainability certifications globally (Poortier, 2017). Often times, the output of the
sustainability certification is a colored stamp that signified that the business or the activity
there is environmental friendly and that gives a positive impact towards the psychological
side of the customers. But, with more then 300 programs that offers the certification
scheme, it is more like just merely a stamp that bought from a certification body, with just
a very little effort on the environmental friendly activities, as long as the green label is
exist in their brand. The numerous, not centralized and sporadic programs that offers the
certification has created vagueness and also confusion for the travelers and consumer
that leads to misleading claims just to be labeled sustainable than they actually are. The
foundation of the problem is because until now, the sustainability certification program is
much unregulated, and institutions are allowed to be the accreditation body if they are
willing to. The consequences of this condition is many stakeholders in tourism industry
that actually do nothing related to sustainable tourism find the easiest way to get the
accreditation, either lying, or choose the cheapest certification that are available.

What the industry could do to get away from this great problem that might risk the future
of the environment, is to do a simplification of the certification program scheme in the
world, put clarity in how the certification should be conduct, and set an international
regulation that centralized the accreditation body, which is the Global Sustainable
Tourism Council (GSTC). GSTC as the independent, neutral, and leading NGO in the
sustainable industry sector has to be the only one that issued the certification in order to
achieve a same standard of sustainable environment all over the world. Its not an easy
task to do, because it requires international consensus not only from the government but
also from the private sector to agreed with this mono accreditation body scheme. Because
only by this, we have a certainty that sustainable tourism could be achieve in a proper
and systematical way.
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