Could Certification on Sustainable Tourism Result in Destination Loyalty?

The purpose of this study is to conceptualize a model of sustainable tourism development certification in a destination which can result on destination loyalty and to find out whether the accountability of the destination in turning the certification standards tangible to the tourists can create positive experience during their stay and may enhance the positive image of the destination in the visitors' mind and finally resulted on destination loyalty. The conceptual model was developed on the basis of existing theoretical and empirical research in the fields of marketing and tourism. The model includes five constructs, with destination loyalty being the outcome. The result of a continuous tourist satisfaction monitoring guaranteed through sustainable tourism development certification could be serve as an input for destination loyalty and strategic discussions. It can help the development of a tourist destination by identifying strategic objectives at the destination level, preparing tactical and operational plans and ultimately increasing the competitiveness of a given destination. Achieving tourists' intention to revisit and recommend others would be one of the most important goals for destination loyalty, to our knowledge, only a few universal cause-and-effect measurement instruments/models have been developed to support this goal, one of them is certification.