The GDS-Index results offer insights into the trends and progress of the global destinations’ commitment to transforming their social, environmental, and management offering.
This is the sixth year of benchmarking based on a revised and comprehensive set of criteria that assesses four key areas of the sustainability performance of a destination. These include the city’s environmental strategy and infrastructure; its social sustainability performance; industry supplier support; and the destination management organisation’s strategy and initiatives.
The results also show that sustainability strategies are starting to have a significant positive impact on the design and capabilities of events and tourism despite the pandemic. Overall, the GDS-Index is seeing many more examples of tourism being included in climate change mitigation strategies which shows the commitment of the sector toward the integration of inclusive strategies that can shift policy.
| Overall place | Score |
| 1. Gothenburg | 88.95% |
| 2. Copenhagen | 85.08% |
| 3. Aarhus | 82.47% |
| 4. Glasgow | 82.35% |
| 5. Reykjavik | 80.32% |
| 6. Tirol | 80.21% |
Overall Improvement
Despite a challenging year in 2020 and 2021, many DMOs have used the time with lower tourist numbers to integrate more sustainable practices. Looking at the larger picture, we witnessed an average score increase of 21% in average performance since 2016 years. For the Top 10, this increase is even higher at 36%.
Guy Bigwood, Managing Director of the GDS-Index stated that: “The Covid-19 pandemic and the increasing public and political focus on equality, diversity, and climate change have had a massive positive impact on destinations in 2021. This year in the GDS-Index we see a tidal wave of new sustainable destination strategies and positive action. DMOs are stepping up to better engage and listen to their residents, co-create new visions with their stakeholders, educate both the supply chain and their customers, financially support certification programmes, and measure results. 2021 will be recognised as a tipping-point year, not only for increased action in sustainability but also as the year when regenerative thinking started to be more widely integrated into destination management and stewardship plans. It’s the year when destination management really took precedence over destination marketing.“
Find all the results of who is leading in social and environmental indicators here.
