As the leading international organization with a goal of promoting and encouraging the development of tourism in the world, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) stands for responsible and sustainable tourism accessible to everyone. Accordingly, ten years ago the UNWTO initiated the development of the so called INSTO network, i.e. the International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories.

The INSTO is a network of tourism observatories monitoring the economic, environmental and social impact of tourism at a destination level. It includes Greece, China, Mexico and Brazil, whilst Croatia and Indonesia recently became members of this group in which the development of tourism will be monitored. All credits go to a group of scientists from the Zagreb Institute for tourism who launched the CROSTO – Croatian Sustainable Tourism Observatory with a goal of monitoring the development of tourism in Croatia.

The Institute for Tourism with the support of the Ministry of Tourism successfully applied for the INSTO network membership. The first official measurement of sustainability of tourism in Croatia will begin at the end of this year via the so called ETIS (European Tourism Indicators System) i.e. the system of indicators for measurement and monitoring of sustainable development of tourism developed by the EU Commission.