Following the exposure for TOMM last year when Kangaroo Island was announced Best Island in the Asia Pacific by National Geographic magazine, comes enhanced international exposure at a United Nations conference in China.

Kangaroo Island’s unique Tourism Optimis-ation Management Model was presented at the International Conference of Sustainable Tourism Management at Heritage Sites organised by UNESCO and the World Tourism Organisation in the province of Huangshan.

“Taking TOMM to this world-class event positions KI and SA as having one of the longest community driven sustainable tourism monitoring models in the world that measures both the positive and negative impacts of tourism,” said TOMM officer Tobias Mendelovici.

Mr Mendelovici liaised with UN officers to include TOMM at the conference.

“It is an outstanding achievement that will open new doors to KI TOMM in the future,” he said.

TOMM materials were distributed to the 200 delegates from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Botswana and Australia and KI TOMM slides were included within the broader presentation on sustainable tourism by TOMM ambassador and original architect Australian specialist Dr Simon McArthur.

At the core of TOMM is a practical set of measures or indictors that inform stakeholders about the impacts of tourism on KI.

The four-day conference attracted widespread media coverage across China and at its conclusion the World Tourism Organisation and the Chinese Government announced the establishment in China of the world’s first sustainable tourism observatory.