Tangible ways forward

To ensure that the benefits of tourism in urban and rural settings outweigh the challenges, the problems indicated above need to be addressed in each individual context, depending on the local situation. Overarching starting points lie in the fields of urban and rural governance, integrated planning, inclusiveness through the redistribution of wealth and meaningful participation in order to be responsible toward the present and future generations.

The scale and speed of tourism development requires good urban and rural governance which is alert and responsive to the needs and concerns of the people and communities, and which makes use of its scope for flexibility, creativity and innovation while respecting all human and environmental rights. Local autonomy per se may not guarantee positive changes, but it is – along with transparency and accountability – a prerequisite for strong city level ownership of urban transformation processes towards sustainability that incorporate tourism-related strategies.

To contribute to sustainable and inclusive cities, tourism must be made an integral part of urban sustainability planning across disciplines. Better training, capacity building, financial resources and suitable collaboration mechanisms are needed to enable planners to adopt integrated, participatory approaches. Local authorities committed to making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable need to assess suita- ble traditional and new practices, e.g. sharing economy mechanisms, solidarity systems, sharing of common land and goods, non-monetary exchange systems, and ecological and resource-conserving practices. Some of these may require new forms of regulation and a redistribution of wealth to produce equitable outcomes.

Inclusiveness and the “Right to the City”

Inclusiveness in an urban context means to ensure the “Right to the City” for all, which refers to the capacity of urban citizens to influence processes of urban development and to make a city they want to live in (Castán Broto, 2016). The imperative of leaving no-one behind, as stipulated in the 2030 Agenda, places emphasis on improving the lives of the most disadvantaged, most vulnerable sections of society. It is an imperative which, at destination level, needs to be seen as a key criterion reflecting success for the tourism in contributing to SDG 11.

Meaningful Informed Participation

Incorporating tourism into urban and regional planning must include targeted efforts to build genuine consensus among various stakeholders at all levels. In particular, communities affected by tourism must have a say in planning, decision-making, implementa- tion, and monitoring processes. For participation to be successful, communities need to be informed, empowered and, enabled to contribute, and they need to obtain concrete advantages.

Local self-government may need to proactively offer attractive independent platforms and formats, such as creativity workshops, focus groups or surveys that also reach and involve disadvantaged members of the community. Communication needs to be via different channels for all citizens to know that they have a right and possibilities to participate. Eventually, local authorities also need to have the means to ensure that the results of such processes will be implemented.

Monitoring Sustainability

There is still a dire lack of research and frameworks to analyse, measure and monitor city tourism and its impacts on urban and regional development from a sustainability perspective. Approaches that can be used and developed, however, include existing systems of indicators and criteria that have been introduced to measure the sustainability of tourist destinations in general. Adapted to specific contexts and addressing the key challenges that individual cities and human settlements are facing, such systems can serve as helpful tools to monitor the contribution of tourism to SDG 11. Much of the data and research needed may not be available yet, and may need to be collected, generated, or recom- bined in new ways.