Piloting International Network of Sustainable

Innovation methods

Data sources

SDG(s)

Sustainable Development Goal(s)

11Sustainable cities and communities

12Responsible consumption and production

17Partnerships for the goals

Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.

Title

Please provide a name for your action learning plan.

Piloting local Data Observatory in Malaysia - International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO)

Challenge statement

Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge. Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.

EXPLORATORY

Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)

What makes a tourism destination, sustainable? Our challenge is, in the world where greenwashing is rampant, governments or public agencies are trying assert some destinations as eco-tourism or sustainable tourism. These practices are not evidence-based nor data-driven.

Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?

INSTO provides framework for destinations to develop and manage their sustainability aspects using data and evidence. For Malaysia, this is revolutionary as data ecosystem is mired with data unavailability or lack of evidence-based decision-making culture. As such, no destination can claim they are sustainable, and continue to be unappealing the masses, with tourists keep concentrating on urban areas. The assessment of current local data ecosystems and pathways for data on sustainability performances and tourism statistics to be used for concrete actions or evidence-based strategies, is imperative.

Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.

Malaysia is trying to implement tourism industry recovery strategy to achieve an effective recovery plan,balancing economic interests and public health post-pandemic, throughout National Tourism Policy (NTP) 2020-2030. Tourism industry directly employs over 660,000 people in Malaysia, representing about 9% of the nation’s workforce, but little is known about how tourism can elevate sustainability practices and governance at local level.

Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.

Tourists arrival and revenue as a marker of tourism level are not enough to maintain competitiveness. There are more interest in sustainable tourism in Thailand and Indonesia compared to Malaysia

Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?

AccLab brings in experience in change management and data innovation to support the introduction of SDG indicators in local councils, and design thinking approach that is suitable to pilot data observatory project like this. Together with Sustainable Tourism project team, the pilot serves as learning platform to understand how to marry data to policy and data innovation, surfacing local solutions that will be applicable for the rest of aspiring sustainable tourism destinations in Malaysia

Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?

UNDP works with local council of Mersing using INSTO as innovative catalysts of transformative change and decision-making tools as sustainable tourism observatory which has systematic, timely and regular monitoring of tourism performance and impact

Challenge classification

Partners

Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.

Please state the name of the partner:

UNWTO Ministry of Tourism and Culture Mersing Local Council Tourism Johor

What sector does our partner belong to?

Government (&related)

Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.

Capacity building, digital and data literacy, standardization of INSTO core indicators

Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?

Yes

Learning questions

Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?

(i) assessment of gaps in data and knowledge management, plus how monitoring data can be effectively used to influence regulations, planning and policies, and as marketing strategies ii) evaluation of data ecosystem and (iii) production of toolkit to guide other local councils to apply as INSTO destination based on the destinations case study

To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?

Explore, Test

Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

Data asset mapping and assessment for the 11 indicators Testing regulatory and data innovation to close the gaps in data and decision-making

Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

Geospatial and ethnography

Closing

Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?

Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Economy, in scaling up the project to other sites of Malaysia to build a network of certified and data-oriented sustainable tourism destinations

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