Sustainable tourism certification and state capacity: keep it local, simple, and fuzzy

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of sustainable tourism certification in developing countries and to present methodological and practical critiques and improvements. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses methodological refinements of fuzzy logic and comparative analysis based on fieldwork in seven countries. Findings - Sustainable tourism programs should be locally designed with local logos, largely performance-based, and aggregation should be based on fuzzy logic concepts of necessary and jointly sufficient attributes of sustainable tourism. Originality/value - The paper uses political science concepts of state capacity and methodological advances of fuzzy logic to provide keys for successful sustainable tourism certification programs in developing countries.