Table of Contents
Introduction
Tourism has rebounded strongly after the pandemic, but the recovery has exposed deep structural challenges. Destinations face pressure from overtourism, climate change, workforce shortages and uneven economic benefits. Policymakers increasingly recognise that sustainable tourism cannot be achieved through vision statements alone. It requires robust evidence, reliable data and integrated governance frameworks.
The OECD’s Tourism Trends and Policies 2024 report highlights the urgent need to strengthen the evidence base for tourism policy and planning. Without accurate data and analytical tools, governments and communities risk making decisions that undermine sustainability, resilience and long-term value creation.
This article explores why evidence-based tourism policy matters, what the OECD report reveals, and how destinations can build smarter, more resilient tourism systems.
The Growing Complexity of Tourism Governance
Tourism has become one of the most interconnected sectors of modern economies. It influences employment, regional development, infrastructure, climate policy and community wellbeing. The OECD notes that tourism has recovered strongly since COVID-19, but the rebound has been uneven and accompanied by new challenges such as geopolitical tensions, cost-of-living pressures and climate impacts.
These dynamics make tourism policy increasingly complex. Decisions about infrastructure, marketing or visitor management now require coordination across multiple policy domains, including environment, transport, labour and regional development.
However, many destinations still rely on fragmented data and short-term indicators such as visitor numbers or spending. This creates blind spots in understanding environmental impacts, social equity and long-term resilience.
Why Evidence Matters in Sustainable Tourism
The OECD emphasises that measuring tourism’s economic and social impacts is essential for designing effective policies. Comparable, timely and robust data allows policymakers to align tourism strategies with broader sustainability goals.
Evidence-based tourism policy enables governments and organisations to:
- Understand real impacts beyond economic growth
- Identify trade-offs between tourism development and environmental protection
- Target interventions where they deliver the greatest value
- Monitor progress towards sustainability and resilience
In practice, this means moving beyond traditional metrics towards integrated indicators covering climate emissions, biodiversity, community wellbeing and inclusive economic benefits.
Key Insights from the OECD Report
1) Tourism growth without sustainability creates systemic risks
The OECD report warns that strong tourism recovery is a “wake-up call” for destinations struggling to manage demand and its impacts on communities and ecosystems.
Unchecked growth can lead to:
- Environmental degradation
- Rising housing and infrastructure costs
- Loss of cultural identity
- Declining resident support for tourism
Evidence-based policy is essential to balance economic benefits with social and environmental limits.
2) Data gaps undermine sustainable decision-making
One of the OECD’s core findings is that tourism data remains fragmented across institutions and sectors. Many countries lack integrated systems linking tourism statistics with environmental, social and spatial data.
This creates three critical challenges:
- Incomplete understanding of tourism’s true impacts
- Weak monitoring of sustainability outcomes
- Limited capacity to evaluate policy effectiveness
The OECD therefore calls for improved data governance, cross-sector collaboration and digital tools to strengthen tourism intelligence.
3) Sustainable tourism requires whole-of-government approaches
The report highlights the need for coordinated, forward-looking policies to build a resilient and inclusive tourism sector.
This aligns with the concept of policy coherence, which integrates economic, social and environmental objectives across government departments and policy cycles.
In tourism, policy coherence means aligning:
- Tourism strategies with climate and biodiversity policies
- Regional development with community wellbeing
- Transport planning with emission reduction goals
Without such integration, sustainability initiatives remain fragmented and ineffective.
From Evidence to Action: Rethinking Tourism Intelligence
The OECD findings point to a broader shift in tourism governance: from reactive management to strategic, data-driven planning.
This shift requires three transformations.
1) Expanding the scope of tourism indicators
Traditional tourism metrics focus on arrivals, expenditure and employment. However, sustainable tourism requires broader indicators, including:
- Carbon emissions and energy use
- Ecosystem health and biodiversity
- Community wellbeing and social equity
- Local economic retention
Research shows that tourism cannot be considered sustainable without addressing transport emissions and integrating spatial and environmental data into policy frameworks.
2) Integrating digital and spatial data
Digital technologies and big data offer new opportunities for tourism intelligence, including:
- Real-time visitor flows
- Environmental monitoring
- Behavioural insights
- Scenario modelling
When integrated into governance systems, these tools can help destinations anticipate risks rather than respond to crises.
3) Embedding resilience into tourism policy
The OECD report stresses the importance of resilience in tourism governance. Tourism systems must adapt to shocks such as pandemics, climate disasters and economic volatility.
Evidence-based resilience planning involves:
- Scenario analysis
- Risk assessment
- Long-term monitoring frameworks
This approach aligns closely with regenerative and resilience-focused tourism models, which aim not only to reduce harm but to enhance ecological and social systems.
Implications for Sustainable and Regenerative Tourism
The OECD’s emphasis on evidence-based policy resonates strongly with emerging paradigms in sustainable and regenerative tourism.
Rather than treating sustainability as a marketing label, regenerative tourism focuses on:
- Net positive environmental outcomes
- Empowered local communities
- Long-term ecosystem regeneration
- Systems-level transformation
Evidence-based frameworks are essential to measure these outcomes and avoid greenwashing.
For organisations working in sustainability and resilience, this creates a strategic opportunity: developing tools, frameworks and indicators that translate sustainability principles into measurable outcomes.
What This Means for Destinations Like New Zealand
For countries such as New Zealand, where tourism is deeply connected to natural landscapes and cultural identity, evidence-based policy is particularly critical.
The OECD report shows that sustainable tourism is increasingly integrated into national and regional development strategies.
However, integration alone is not enough. Destinations must ensure that tourism data informs real decision-making across sectors, from conservation to infrastructure planning.
Without this shift, tourism risks undermining the very resources that make destinations attractive.
Conclusion: Towards Smarter Tourism Futures
The OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2024 report makes one message clear: sustainable tourism is not possible without strong evidence.
Data-driven governance is no longer optional. It is the foundation of resilient, inclusive and regenerative tourism systems.
For policymakers, researchers and practitioners, the challenge is not simply to collect more data, but to transform how evidence is used in tourism decision-making.
The future of tourism will be shaped not by visitor numbers alone, but by the quality of intelligence guiding its development.