Photo by Vaida Tamošauskaitė on Unsplash
Photo on Destination Stewardship Center

Jonathan Tourtellot

Director

Destination Stewardship Center

POSITION

Director

COMPANY

Destination Stewardship Center

COUNTRY

United States

SCENE

Social

SOCIAL

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What makes Jonathan Tourtellot a Global Shaker?

Journalist, editor, speaker, and consultant, Jonathan Tourtellot is Director of the nonprofit Destination Stewardship Center (DSC).

The organisation’s goal is to help places around the world manage their tourism wisely, by providing them with the resources they need for “enlightened” destination stewardship. This includes information about when tourism both helps and hurts destinations around the world.

DSC is the independent successor to National Geographic’s former Center for Sustainable Destinations, a program he founded and directed for nine years. The Center instituted the National Geographic Geotourism MapGuide program and landmark Destination Stewardship surveys published in National Geographic Traveler from 2004-2010.

On the Destination Center website, Tourtellot writes that he created the concept of geotourism, as defined by the National Geographic as tourism that “sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place—its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.”

Tourtellot occasionally blogged for National Geographic News until the platform closed in 2018, and speaks and holds workshops on destination stewardship and the geotourism approach around the world.

DSC is one of the six founding members of the Future of Travel Coalition, alongside The Travel Foundation; Sustainable Travel International; Tourism Cares; CREST; and Green Destinations.

Tags: Responsible Tourism, Sustainable Travel, tourism

Last updated: September 25, 2020