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Good practices in sustainable tourism in Colombia
This research corresponds to a comparative study on the implementation of sustainable tourism strategies in ten Colombian municipalities, chosen under the criteria established in NTS TS 001-1. This research is focused on answering the following question: What are the factors that favor the success of local tourism sustainability initiatives and how can they be adapted to other territories with similar conditions? In this sense, a descriptive-comparative and qualitative methodology was applied in this work, based on the benchmarking technique, with the support of a documentary review of strategic plans, sectoral policies and sustainability data corresponding to the period 2015–2025. The results show that the active participation of local communities, the integration of environmental criteria in territorial management and the strengthening of community-based tourism initiatives are key conditions for consolidating sustainable tourism models. These experiences allow us to identify common patterns and transferable lessons, which facilitates the construction of guidelines that can be replicated in other municipalities with a tourist vocation. Consequently, the document proposes a methodological route to apply good practices in new contexts, in order to strengthen the formulation of public policies aimed at the responsible and competitive development of tourism in Colombia.
