Agence du Tourisme de la Corse (ATC)
France
September, 2025
Aligning Sustainability Indicators with Long-Term Destination Strategy
Context
Corsica, known for its stunning landscapes and rich biodiversity, has implemented a range of sustainability policies aimed at promoting responsible tourism. These initiatives focus on environmental protection, green mobility, community engagement, and support for local businesses. However, Corsican authorities sought to structure these efforts in a clear and recognisable way for all tourism stakeholders.
The island’s ambition to become a model for sustainable tourism is driven by the need to ensure that its natural beauty and cultural richness can be preserved for future generations. With this goal in mind, the Agence du Tourisme de la Corse (ATC) adopted a data-driven approach to measure and monitor its sustainable development efforts, ultimately aiming to obtain certification as a Green Destination.
Key goals
Green Destinations is an international sustainability standard and awards programme for tourism destinations, recognised by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). It is also the world’s largest community of destinations committed to sustainability, supported by more than 50 programme partners worldwide, with over 600 destinations across 60 countries already participating.
The programme evaluates destinations based on a comprehensive set of criteria, including environmental management, socio-economic impact, cultural heritage protection, climate and energy strategies, and overall governance. Awards are granted at four levels—Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum—depending on how well a destination meets the Green Destinations Standard.
By obtaining this certification, ATC aimed to secure independent and credible recognition of the extensive public efforts and policies implemented to promote sustainable tourism development across the island.
Approach
Mabrian supported the Agence du Tourisme de la Corse in developing a data-driven framework to assess and monitor all aspects required for certification. This approach was designed with a long-term vision: to create a robust model capable of measuring the impact of future sustainability initiatives within Corsica’s tourism strategy.
The framework incorporated the over 80 sustainability criteria included in the Green Destinations assessment, all of which required thorough documentation and validation through an independent on-site audit.
To support this process, Mabrian applied its sustainability intelligence model, which provides a comprehensive set of indicators to measure and track progress. This model includes seven core indicators: Distribution of tourist expenditure, Carbon footprint (CO₂ emissions), Concentration of tourism supply, Sustainability perception, Seasonality, Motivational diversification, and Dependency on source markets.
Results
This measurement model played a key role in ATC achieving the Gold Green Destinations certification, recognising Corsica’s progress in multiple areas, including preservation of natural landscapes and biodiversity, energy management and climate adaptation, cultural heritage protection and local tradition valorisation, inclusive and socially responsible tourism planning, and local stakeholder engagement, and sustainable tourism product development.
This achievement reflects Corsica’s long-term commitment to responsible tourism—balancing visitor appeal with environmental sustainability and community well-being. It also marks a significant milestone in the efforts of the Agence du Tourisme de la Corse and its partners to embed sustainable practices across the island’s tourism ecosystem.
