History of sustainable tourism at VisitBritain
In 2001, the English Tourism Council published a sustainable strategy A Time for Action: A strategy for sustainable tourism in England, accompanied by a set of national indicators.
In parallel, the British Tourist Authority (BTA) published its Sustainable Tourism Strategy, The Sustainable Growth of Tourism to Britain, which aimed to ensure that the benefits that BTA gained for Britain were not outweighed by their costs and that tourism to Britain did not degrade the key resources on which it was based. Essentially, this strategy was to ensure that BTA’s overseas marketing activities were in keeping with the principles of sustainable tourism noted above.
Since the publication of these documents, however, both the British Tourist Authority and English Tourism Council (since combined to form VisitBritain) and sustainability have changed considerably.
When VisitBritain formed in 2003 the responsibility that previously been held by the ETC for sustainability passed to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Information about the role of DCMS in the development of sustainable tourism policy and supporting documentation is available. Supporting DCMS meet the key objectives for sustainable tourism set out in Winning: A tourism strategy for 2012 and beyond is an integral part of our strategy.