Tourist Tuesday – Monterey County

Tourist Tuesday is on Wednesday this week, due to Christmas Holiday.

“Monterey County, CA, December 18, 2018 The Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau (MCCVB) has joined two initiatives that will further its goal of ensuring Monterey County is one of the worlds leading sustainable destinations by both setting ambitious goals and measuring long term impacts.

The first is with Positive Impact, a global not for profit which exists to provide education and collaboration opportunities to create a sustainable event industry and a vision to address the role of plastics in this industry.”

Here is the second: “Measuring success is also critical to MCCVBs mission. The organization joined the Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index) initiative, an alliance focused on helping destinations, convention bureaus, and businesses promote sustainable practices. The GDS-Index does this by measuring and comparing sustainability strategies, policies and performance of participating destinations and by sharing best practices from around the world.

GDS-Index recently released its yearly survey of global destinations at the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA) annual meeting in Dubai in November. Monterey County scored 52% on the sustainability index just behind Geneva and ahead of U.S. cities like Washington, D.C. and Houston. The scoring allows MCCVB to set a benchmark and improve in the coming years.”

Ultimately, protecting our destination is every bit as important as promoting it, said Rob OKeefe, Chief Marketing Officer for MCCVB. These initiatives contribute to our long term viability as a top tourism destination plus they are essential to the balance we seek to foster between visiting travelers and the residents who call our beautiful region home.”

The latest Global Destination Sustainability (GDS) Index has shown Scandinavia leading the way, with the top six destinations all coming from countries in the region.

Gothenburg was the overall winner with a score of 94% on the GDS Index, a rating system designed to recognise responsible practices in the business tourism and events industry.

This is done by measuring and comparing the social and environmental sustainability strategies, policies and performance of participating cities around the world.

Here are the figures/breakdown for Monterey County:

This is the link to the GDS Index report specifically to Monterey, however if you explore this website, you will see how we compare to the others: https://www.gds-index.com/destinations/explore/view/monterey-county/united-states/2018/68

Monterey County has a long way to go to compete with the Scandinavian Countries. At least now, we know where we are starting.