2025 Volume 32 Pages 83-90
In recent years, overtourism has become a significant concern, prompting extensive research and reporting on its impacts. To address this issue, Tourism Indicators for Sustainability （STI） have been developed as institutional tools to enhance sustainability in tourism destinations. Notable examples include the UNWTO Guidebook （2004）, GSTC-D （established internationally in 2013）, ETIS （introduced in Europe in 2013）, and JSTS-D （updated in Japan in 2020）. Effectively implementing STI requires the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders; however, reaching a consensus among such a diverse group can be challenging. Okamura （2004） points out that bottom-up approaches, which involve resident participation, often encounter difficulties due to information asymmetry—where predicting the participation of others becomes difficult—suggesting that top-down approaches might be more effective. This research explores whether consensus can be achieved among a broad stakeholder base by applying game theory analysis. It identifies free-riding as a key issue resulting from information asymmetry but argues that appropriate institutional design of STI can overcome these challenges and enable effective bottom-up implementation.
