Making Locals Happy: The Secret to Truly Sustainable Tourism

In the evolving landscape of sustainable tourism, a new approach is gaining ground: putting residents—not just visitors—at the centre of destination strategy.

As Randy Durband, CEO of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, aptly notes: "To really make a city attractive to visitors is to make it attractive to residents."

This perspective marks a critical shift from traditional thinking, where the success of tourism was measured by visitor numbers, revenue, or global rankings, rather than by the lived experience of those who call the destination home.

The Overlooked Metric: Resident Wellbeing

Despite the growing call to prioritize local communities, most sustainability indexes and rankings still give resident well-being a minor role. Only about 16.43% of the weight in these systems focuses on social issues such as fair wages, quality of life, and community attitudes, with the bulk of attention going to environmental or economic criteria.

This imbalance risks reinforcing a system where tourism's impact on daily life and the social fabric—whether positive or negative—remains an afterthought. As Professor Matias Thuen Jørgensen highlighted, "What we see with many of these initiatives is that the residents who get involved are typically the usual suspects … it does not lead to broad-based resident involvement, but rather to a situation where only a few voices are heard." Real, inclusive engagement is still rare, but crucial.

Learning From Leaders: Breaking Down Quality of Life

Cities like Gothenburg and Helsinki are breaking the mold by reimagining what "sustainable" really means on the ground. Katarina Thorstensson, Gothenburg's Sustainability Strategist, emphasizes the need to "break it down"—looking at how people live, what they value, and how tourism shapes their everyday experiences.

Key resident-first questions now include:

  • Are residents satisfied with their city as a place to live?
  • Do they feel heard and engaged in tourism planning?
  • How does tourism support (or undermine) their sense of belonging and security?

Margrét Wendt, Project Manager at Visit Reykjavik, echoes this: "Are they happy with the amount of tourists? What are they perceiving as the main benefits and challenges?" When residents feel overwhelmed, ignored, or displaced, social tensions rise, and the very character that attracts visitors is put at risk. As the VivaCity whitepaper observes, true "quality of life is not a soft value—it is the beating heart of urban sustainability".

Resident-First Tourism: More Than a Trend

Shifting to a resident-first approach reframes tourism from an external metric—focused on visitor experiences or international hype—to an internal question: does tourism genuinely enrich local lives? Xavier Font, Professor at University of Surrey, notes that when destinations ask, "How does tourism as a sector contribute to broader societal issues?", they earn a seat at the civic table and become true partners in community progress.

This mindset is not just about soft values or branding. It delivers practical sustainability:

  • Civic pride and partnership: When locals support and feel proud of their city's tourism, they become advocates and co-creators of the visitor experience.
  • Mutual benefit: Investments in green space, public transport, and cultural heritage that benefit residents also make the city more appealing to guests.
  • Equity and protection: Policies that protect affordable housing and inclusive public spaces ensure that tourism growth doesn't erode, but actively supports community integrity and well-being.

Beyond Rankings: Defining Sustainable Success

A resident-centric tourism strategy demands new ways to define and measure success. Rather than simply chasing higher scores on international indexes—many of which value visibility over substance—leading cities are developing feedback loops with their communities through regular surveys, public meetings, citizen panels, and hands-on co-creation initiatives.

The goal isn't just to avoid negative impacts, but to proactively foster well-being, inclusion, and shared prosperity. In Helsinki, for example, almost all major hotels, conference venues, and attractions have achieved significant sustainability certifications—yet city leaders admit real progress has more to do with continuous local engagement and partnership than with scores or badges alone. There, consistent effort goes into giving residents a structural voice in tourism decision-making, even as broader participation is still a work in progress.

Gothenburg's journey also highlights that sustainability isn't just about formal frameworks, but about open dialogue, tailored messages, patience, and celebrating incremental wins.

Thorstensson advises: "It gives you a framework and you measure and see, evaluate where you are. … It doesn't say anything that much about the quality of everything. … It is like what you make of it".

- ELKE DENS

Place Generation captured their reflections in a whitepaper: The Score is Not the Story, produced by CityDNA in partnership with Simpleview/Granicus to share with other cities.



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