Sonoma Observatory

As the newest member of the UN World Tourism Organization, the Sonoma Sustainable Tourism Observatory will focus on areas such as the scarcity of water, the impacts of agricultural-tourism growth in a complex and sensitive environment, climate change responsiveness and resilience, the viable regeneration of essential public places such as state parks, and employment and local living opportunities.

2017: UN Year of Sustainable Tourism

2017 has been declared to be the Year of Sustainable Tourism by the United Nations. To kick it off we at Sonoma Sustainable Tourism are aiming to establish an Observatory this year. 

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Located in California (USA), the Sonoma County Sustainable Tourism Observatory is the latest member having successfully joined the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO). This comes in a very unique momentum as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development is being celebrated worldwide. 
A “sustainable tourism observatory” is responsible for monitoring, and reporting on, the sustainability of tourism actions and policies in its destination area (in this case, Sonoma County), using methodologies outlined in the World Tourism Organization’s “Guidebook on Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism Destinations”. As in this case, Observatories are generally located near institutions of learning which have established libraries capable of serving as repositories for the Observatory’s publications and collections of sustainable tourism research by other member-observatories in the world-wide UNWTO network.
It is the aim of the Observatory to advise and assist Sonoma County stakeholders in their efforts toward achieving sustainability in the tourism and hospitality industries.
​The Observatory will also work with state and local government, the university and academic institutions, agriculture and the wineries, citizen organizations and conservation organizations, and the residents in the communities that host tourism in our destination area.
Sonoma has been a leader in the
field of sustainability  for years, I can't think of a better spot for a UNWTO Observatory.