WTTC's policy brief, Destination Stewardship: Creating Value for All, argues that tourism success should be measured less by visitor numbers and more by resident satisfaction, long-term resilience and how evenly the benefits of tourism are shared. It sets out seven principles, ranging from collaborative planning and advance preparation to spreading tourism across more seasons and locations and reinvesting revenue into local communities, and illustrates them with examples from destinations including Madrid, Dubrovnik, Copenhagen, Ljubljana, Bogotá, and the Balearic Islands.

Alongside the long-term framework, the brief includes short-term actions destinations can apply during peak season, such as monitoring resident sentiment, mapping pressure points with better data, and promoting lesser-known alternatives to reduce concentration in the most visited spots. WTTC frames destination stewardship as a governance approach that governments, local communities and businesses need to shape together rather than something imposed top-down.

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