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Norway’s fjords, Tasmania, Vermont, andTuscany look to be in relatively goodshape. Not so for the Costa del Sol,Phuket, and Key West. In cases likeCape Cod, opinion is divided.

That’s all according to an unusual new sur-vey, whose results yield what TRAVELER believesto be the world’s first Index of DestinationStewardship. Ever since travel began boomingafter World War II, development pressures,environmental problems, civil strife, culturalerosion, and, yes, mass tourism have increas-ingly challenged the integrity of destinationsworldwide. “Unspoiled” is a description youhear less and less. Which great places haveremained great by protecting themselvesagainst these trends? Which have failed?

To find out, TRAVELER worked with theNational Geographic’s Sustainable TourismInitiative and a graduate team from LeedsMetropolitan University in England to conduct a

Authenticity 21st cen-tury style: An outboardoutrigger ferries tour-ists across a Tahitian lagoon. Despite a nameonce synonymous withparadise, Tahiti made apoor score on the stew-ardship index due tooverdevelopment.

complex global survey of over 200 specialists insustainable tourism and destination quality. Weasked these experts to evaluate 115 of theworld’s best known places based on six criteriathat pertain to cultural, environmental, and aes-thetic integrity (“About the Survey,” page 67).

The scores that follow, based on a 1-to-100scale, reflect their opinions. For each destina-tion, symbols show which factors most influ-enced their judgments. No destination rated 90or above (“unspoiled and likely to remain so”),but none fell into the “catastrophic” under-20range either. Destinations in the best shape facerelatively few threats or, significantly, havelearned how to handle them. Those at the lowend have lost much, but could perhaps recover.

We expect that this index will generate a lotof discussion, even a few arguments. That’s fine,if it gets everyone, especially policymakers, tothink more about wise stewardship of the placeswe love. The future of travel depends on it.

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Destination ScorecardDevelopment, pollution, globalization, masstourism—are the world’s great places still . . .great?

TRAVELER introduces a new way to see how well your destination iscoping with the 21st century. By Jonathan B. Tourtellot

115 Places Rated

W I L D

Norwegian fjords 82 1 � �

Cape Breton Island, Canada 78 2 � � �

South Island, New Zealand 78 2 � � �

Torres del Paine, Chile 78 2 � � �

Tasmania, Australia 77 3 � � �

Rocky Mountain parks, Canada 76 4 � � �

Scottish Highlands, United Kingdom 75 5 � � �

Kruger National Park, South Africa 74 6 � � �

Kyoto historic district, Japan 74 6 � �

Quebec City historic center, Canada 74 6 � � �

Vermont, USA 74 6 � � �

Bay of Islands, New Zealand 73 7 � �

Heidelberg, Germany 73 7 � � �

Laurentian Highlands, Quebec-Canada 73 7 � �

Salzburg historic center, Austria 72 8 � � �

Alpine regions, Switzerland 71 9 � � �

Charleston, SC, historic center, USA 71 9 � � �

Colorado Rockies, USA 71 9 � � �

Dubrovnik, Croatia 71 9 � � �

Easter Island, Chile 71 9 � � �

Fez historic center, Morocco 71 9 � �

Inside Passage, Alaska/Canada 71 9 � �

Maine coast, USA 71 9 � �

Northern California coast (Marin-Eureka) 71 9 � �

Ring of Kerry, Ireland 71 9 � � �

Tuscany, Italy 71 9 � � �

Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) area, Australia 71 9 � � �

Yellowstone, USA 71 9 � � �

Baden Baden, Germany 70 10 � � �

Bavarian Alps, Germany 70 10 � � �

Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles 70 10 � �

Krakow historic center, Poland 70 10 � � �

Brittany, France 69 11 � � �

Four Corners (Colorado Plateau), USA 69 11 � � �

Loire Valley, France 69 11 � � �

St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands 69 11 � �

Guanajuato, Gto., Mexico 68 12 � �

Cotswolds, United Kingdom 67 13 � �

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TO P S C O R E S

M I D D L E S C O R E SIt’s no surprise that Norway’s fjords, rated at 82, lead thetop-scoring destinations, thanks to a combination of luckand wise stewardship. Geography dealt the Norwegiancoastline a good hand when it comes to remaining un-

spoiled. Rugged terrain, cool, wet climate, difficult access, and ashort tourist season keep development pressures comparativelylow. (Note how other “cool-fjord coasts” in Chile and New Zealandalso scored well.) It helps, too, to be in a sparsely populated coun-try with one of the world’s best environmental track records (although even here some experts took points off for excessivecruise-ship traffic and threats to native salmon).

More instructive perhaps is ever popular Tuscany, which man-aged a respectable 71 (“minor difficulties”) despite its attractiveclimate, fabulous cultural attractions, and easy access—often aformula for dismaying overdevelopment. What’s Tuscany’s secret?

History helped: The Industrial Revolution chanced to skip overthis Italian region, leaving intact its trademark landscape of hand-tended fields, vineyards, and olive groves, all draped over a softly

Destination Scorecard

Key for symbols

THE GOOD Vermont“One of the few places where alarge percentage of the populaceis committed to conservation/preservation over injudicious development.” —Panelist Tom Clynes,travel author

Norwegian Fjords“This place is wonderful: living tradi-tional culture, wonderful landscape, notcrowded. I am very happy with how thisdestination is managed. Excellent envi-ronmental quality, local people involvedin a very smooth way.” —Panelist EduardoNycander, Rainforest Expeditions

Remote geography helps some high-scoring destinations stay unspoiled.Other places have learned how to cope with popularity.

� environmental conditions

� social/cultural integrity

� condition of historic structures

� aesthetics

� tourism management

� outlook

GREEN = good rating

YELLOW = warning

RED = bad rating

Tight land-use codesprotect Tuscan land-scapes that seem tocome from an artist’sbrush. “A genuine, cultured atmosphere,”adds one panelist, Prof.A.P. Grima, Universityof Toronto.

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muscled topography. Even so, subdivisions might have long ago ruined the painterly scenery had Tuscans not adopted some of theworld’s toughest land-use and building codes: In scenic zones, localregulations limit buildings to two stories, inhibit subdivision, andgovern aesthetics, including which colors you can paint your house.Locals chafe under the rules, but let them stand. Shouldn’t peoplebe allowed to build what they want on their own property, even ifit’s ugly? Answers Alessandro Marangoni, in the region’s economicdevelopment office, “Then it hurts the value of my house.”

Sensitivity to preserving sense of place extends even to such unobtrusive forms of tourism as farm stays. The government encourages agriturismo to help small farms stay in business, butwants authenticity: The farmer’s tax breaks and low-interest loansdisappear if the family lets its tourism business exceed its farmrevenue. The current minister of tourism, Susanna Cenni, even fretsabout Chianti villages that have become too cutesy. She’s seekingways to revive authentic rural businesses in the area.

If only other destinations had such problems . . . .

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W I L D

Galápagos, Ecuador 67 13 � � �

San Juan Islands, WA, USA 67 13 � �

Great Barrier Reef, Australia 66 14 � � �

Machu Picchu, Peru 66 14 � �

Rhine Valley, Germany 66 14 � � �

Yosemite Valley, USA. 66 14 � � �

Amsterdam historic center, Netherlands 65 15 � � �

British Virgin Islands 65 15 � � �

Cuzco historic center, Peru 65 15 � � �

Grand Canyon, USA 65 15 � � �

Isle of Wight, United Kingdom 65 15 � � �

Salvador (Bahia) historic center, Brazil 65 15 � �

Costa Rica 64 16 � � �

Lake District, United Kingdom 64 16 � � �

Petra, Jordan 64 16 � � �

Prague historic center, Czech Republic 64 16 � � �

Bahamian Out Islands 63 17 � �

California wine country, USA 63 17 � � �

Cape Cod, U.S.A. 63 17 � � �

Iguaçu Falls, Argentina/Brazil 63 17 � �

Mid-coast CA (Santa Barbara–Monterey) 63 17 � � �

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania 63 17 � � �

Capri, Italy 62 18 � � �

Fiji 62 18 � � �

Hawaii 62 18 � � �

Pompeii, Italy 62 18 � � �

Amalfi Coast, Italy 61 19 � � �

Borobudur, Indonesia 61 19 � � �

Mont-St.-Michel, France 61 19 � � �

Porto historic center, Portugal 61 19 � �

St. Lucia 61 19 � � �

Sea of Cortez and its coast, Mexico 61 19 � � �

Tikal/Flores, Guatemala 61 19 � � �

Dead Sea, Israel/Jordan 60 20 � � �

Lake Tahoe, USA 60 20 � �

Great Wall, China 59 21 � � �

Lake Titicaca, Bolivia/Peru 59 21 � � �

Azure Coast, Turkey 58 22 � �

Bali, Indonesia 58 22 � � �

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M I D D L E S C O R E S ( C O N T I N U E D )

Destination Scorecard

NOT SO BAD

Cuzco, Peru“Great Inca and colonial town, but inserious trouble . . . . Without real pro-tection and lack of local involvement.Numbers of tourists seem more highlyvalued than delivery of quality experi-ences.”—Panelist Lieve Coppin, consultant

Yosemite Valley, California“Fantastic natural area, plagued byoveruse and crowding during summerseason.”—Panelist Kelly Bricker, Universityof West Virginia and former tour operator

Mont-St.-Michel, France,rates well for historicpreservation, poorly forovercrowding and envi-ronmental neglect thatfilled its bay with silt,and moderately well foroutlook, as plans moveahead to restore the bay.

The many destinations receiving mid-range scores, 55 to69, fall into two camps: those with strong positives can-celed out by equally strong negatives, and those with lotsof notable, but not yet disastrous, negatives.

Some of those in the first group are destinations with twofaces. At Yosemite, for instance, experts noted the park’s dividedpersonality: Its gorgeous scenery and backcountry versus trafficand crowding in Yosemite Valley. The park’s new methods for cop-ing with high visitation there, such as expanded shuttle serviceand fewer parking lots, did receive cautious praise.

On Cape Cod, similarly, a national seashore protects the outerbeaches and much of the peninsula’s forearm, but development, including hundreds of vacation homes, has ballooned to occupy virtually every unprotected stretch of shoreline and much of an interior that was semiwilderness just 50 years ago.

For France’s Mont-St.-Michel, raves for historic preservation con-trasted with numerous complaints about high-season hordes, tackysouvenir shops, and the like. Many experts noted that environmental

Mid-scoring destinations remain attractive, but with worrisome degradation.Some places are doing something about it. Some aren’t.

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problems in the surrounding bay are finally being addressed. If thateffort succeeds, this score should go up in years to come.

The Maya ruin of Tikal and its associated tourist town of Floresin Guatemala also present two faces, but the area as a whole received many comments in the not-yet-disastrous vein. While acknowledging the beauty of Tikal, experts zeroed in on numerousproblems: underappreciated ecological wonders, poor informationfor visitors, growing danger from deliberate forest burn-off, lack oftourism benefit for locals, pollution in Flores, inadequate destina-tion management, and hotels without environmental controls. “It’snot too late to save,” summed up one travel writer.

Some destinations were judged against their reputations. CostaRica’’s surprisingly mediocre score, for instance, reflected a widelyheld feeling that poor tourism management and widespread defor-estation does not match the image of an ecotourism leader thatthe country likes to project.

“Not too late to save.” It’s a good summary for all these middle-zone destinations.

Key for symbols

� environmental conditions

� social/cultural integrity

� condition of historic structures

� aesthetics

� tourism management

� outlook

GREEN = good rating

YELLOW = warning

RED = bad rating

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Destination Scorecard

GETTING UGLY

St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.“Massive overvisitation by massivecruise ships.” —Andrew Drumm, The Nature Conservancy

“Hard to differentiate St. Thomas from an overcrowded Florida shoppingmall.” —Cary Wolinsky, photographer

Evaluating an entire destina-tion requires weighing suchsubtle issues as aesthetic

appeal and cultural integrity, aswell as balancing good pointsagainst bad. No simplisticnumerical measures could do jus-tice to the task. The best solu-tion was to turn to informedhuman judgment. We convened aglobal panel of over 200 expertsin a variety of fields—ecology,sustainable tourism, geography,urban and regional planning,travel writing and photography,historic preservation, culturalanthropology, archaeology—allwell traveled enough to have agood basis for comparing desti-nations against each other.

We asked experts to evaluateonly those places with whichthey were familiar, using six cri-teria weighed as appropriate toeach destination: environmentaland ecological quality; social andcultural integrity; condition ofany historic buildings and archae-ological sites; aesthetic appeal;quality of tourism management;and the outlook for the future.

For places where experts dis-agreed widely, a second round ofscoring used a version of a

research tool called the Delphitechnique, whereby panelistsanonymously exchange furthercomments about the place andthen re-score accordingly.

The index, then, is a compila-tion of informed judgments andperceptions about places thatmay themselves have manyfaces. It should be taken as such.In low-scoring Key West, forexample, you can still find aneco-friendly conch farm andplenty of back-street charm;high-scoring Tuscany still mustcope with a badly polluted ArnoRiver and summer overcrowdingin Florence and Siena.

Like the cards that Olympicjudges hold up, our experts’scores take into account bothmeasurable accomplishment andthe intangibles of style, aesthet-ics, and culture. And likeOlympic athletes, each destina-tion has a chance to improve itsperformance.

Daniel Chang, Elizabeth Parisian,Leeds Metropolitan University,and many others helped with thisstudy. For a list of panelists andmore of their observations, seenationalgeographic.com/traveler.

About the Survey

W I L D

Reef and islands of Belize 58 22 � � �

Corfu (Kerkira), Greece 57 23 � � �

Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt 57 23 � � �

Annapurna Circuit, Nepal 56 24 � � �

Masai Mara, Kenya 56 24 � � �

Rajasthan, India 56 24 � � �

St. Petersburg historic center, Russia 56 24 � � �

Barbados 55 25 � �

Crete, Greece 55 25 � � �

Havana historic center, Cuba 55 25 � � �

Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania 55 25 � �

Amboseli, Kenya 54 26 � � �

Aruba 54 26 � �

Everglades, USA 54 26 � �

Hue, Vietnam 53 27 � �

Tahiti 53 27 � � �

Angkor, Cambodia 52 28 � � �

Canary Islands 52 28 � � �

Outer Banks, NC, USA 52 28 � � �

Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe 52 28 � � �

Acropolis, Greece 51 29 � � �

Chang Mai, Thailand 51 29 � � �

Pyramids, Giza, Egypt 51 29 � � �

Balearic Islands, Spain 50 30 � � �

Great Smoky Mountains, USA 49 31 � � �

Venice, Italy 49 31 � � �

Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine 48 32 � � �

French Riviera 48 32 � � �

Algarve, Portugal 46 33 � � �

Caribbean Coast, Q.R., Mexico 46 33 � � �

Costa Brava, Spain 46 33 � �

Negril, Jamaica 46 33 � �

North coast, Dominican Republic 46 33 � �

St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 45 34 � � �

Key West, FL, USA 43 35 � � �

Phuket area, Thailand 43 35 � � �

North coast, Jamaica 42 36 � � �

Costa del Sol, Spain 41 37 � � �

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M I D D L E S C O R E S ( C O N T I N U E D )Benidorm exemplifiesthe heavy footprint ofpackage tourism onSpanish islands andcoasts. Cheap hotelsprawl prompted lowscores for the Canaries,Balearics, Costa Brava,and Costa del Sol.

Look at the bottom 11 entries on the index: Every one ofthese low-scorers are sun-and-sand shorelines and islands. Behind that lurks an arithmetic reality: The population ofbeach-lovers is ever growing, and there’s only so much

seacoast to go around. A rising demand for a finite resource callsfor wise stewardship. Unfortunately, bulldozers often come beforebrains when quick profits beckon.

One textbook example is Spain’s Costa del Sol—the overbuilt“Costa del Concrete,” which caters to package tours from north-ern Europe, and where you can hear more English or German thanSpanish. As with many uncontrolled seashores, a nonstop line ofcharacterless hotels blocks off the coastline. Proving such a tidecan be turned, one Majorcan town has now razed a few hotels.

On any attractive shore, if no policies exist to cluster mass-tourism hotels, or preserve traditional towns and open space,resort sprawl tends to take over. Community leaders in a few suchdestinations have begun to recognize the problem, asking how bestto handle hordes of tourists who are more interested in sun, rum,

Loved to death? Or exploited to death? Both could apply to low-scoringvictims of crowding, poor planning, and greed. Still, there’s hope.

66 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER 67

and each other than in the country they happen to be visiting. Different threats place other low-scoring destinations at risk:

excess popularity (the Acropolis and the Great Smokies), politicalor civil strife (Bethlehem), poorly planned mass sightseeing(Angkor), encroaching urban development (the Pyramids), inappro-priate tourism development (Great Smokies again—i.e.,Gatlinburg), even sea-level rise from global warming (Venice).

This Stewardship Index is intended to be a wake-up call. Lowscoring places can learn from high-scorers, and many of the desti-nations on the facing page have begun to take countermeasures.Often, though, it’s very, very late in the game. Jamaica’s resorttown of Negril, for instance, has a vigorous reef-restoration pro-gram—now that as much as 90 percent of its reef has died, dueto both local and global factors.

Negril may be working on reform, but in many travel paradisesgreed and shortsightedness still rule. Unless that attitude changes,countless destinations remain golden-egg-laying geese, filing downthe path to the chopping block.

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Key for symbols

� environmental conditions

� social/cultural integrity

� condition of historic structures

� aesthetics

� tourism management

� outlook

GREEN = good rating

YELLOW = warning

RED = bad rating

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