The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) criteria were created to provide an understanding of sustainable tourism, which takes into account the capabilities and stewardship of natural resources, communities, traditions, and lifestyles related to tourism. The Council worked on developing, revising, and striving to comply with the standards of the ISEAL Alliance, an international normative agency for developing sustainability standards in all sectors.

    The GSTC criteria are for the following purposes:

• It is a basic guideline for ensuring the sustainability of tourist attractions;
• It is a basic guideline for more sustainable tourism destinations;
• It helps consumers to know about sustainable tourism destinations;
• It serves as an information medium to raise awareness of destinations and inform the public about the sustainability of tourism destinations;
• It helps with certification and other end-level programs, ensuring that their standards meet broadly accepted basic criteria;
• It proposes public, non-government, and private sector projects as a starting point for developing sustainable tourism requirements;
• It is a basic guideline for education and training agencies such as schools and universities for tourism;
• It demonstrates leadership that inspires others or other sources.

      The GSTC criteria are talking about “What to do” without specifying that the agency do it a certain way. “How to do it” can be an indicator of achieving the goal or not, but the implementation of the GSTC guidelines must be supported in various areas, whether it is relevant learning materials, access to tools for use, or other ways suitable to the project