Restaurant assessment of local food and the global sustainable tourism criteria

Abstract

Certification standards have evolved to become a recognizable achievement in businesses. For tourism, numerous models have risen recently and most are striving to reach broad acceptance. The assessment utilized in this study was the management model suggested by the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC). From the food service perspective, little research has been devoted to exploring the willingness to adopt sustainable practices by restaurant managers. In order to assess the relevancy of the GSTC, a sample of restaurants located on several islands of the Turks and Caicos (TCI), the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts, U.S., in Wales, U.K. and Southern Switzerland were asked to rate the importance of several of the GSTC. Several differences in managements’ rating of sustainable practice were found, illustrating the unique geographies of our sample. Overall however, management embraced the importance of the GSTC.