Join the GDS-Index Journey
The GDS-Index is a trusted performance improvement programme to assess and accelerate the progress of a destination’s regenerative journey. It measures, benchmarks, and enhances the sustainability strategies, action plans, and initiatives of more than 100 destination management organisations, municipal authorities, and their tourism supply chains.
Who is the GDS-Index for?
The GDS-Index is more than just a benchmarking programme – we’re your partners in transformation. Gain unparalleled access to expert insights, strategic enhancements, and innovative approaches designed to make your destination’s tourism and events more regenerative. Don’t just adapt to climate change – lead the change with us.
Whether you are a Destination Management Organisation (DMO), a City Convention Bureau (CVB), a Municipality, a Regional Tourism Organisation (RTO), or a National Tourism Organisation (NTO), the GDS-Index is for you. We have collaborated with destinations of all sizes and organisasions of all types, from small cities to megalopolises, from government bureaux to private, for-profit corporations. Our combined years of expert knowledge give your destination a unique advantage on its journey towards socio-economic and environmental transformation.
Are you eager to redefine your destination’s future?
Here is what to expect on the GDS-Index Journey
Onboarding: We start with introductory meetings to thoroughly orient your team in the journey.
Toolbox: We provide you with a toolbox of guides, templates, and video tutorials about data collection in the online management system, OMNI.
Collaborate: You can delegate GDS-index criteria and access to people inside and outside of your organisation.
Feedback: We review and provide you with feedback and answer all your questions during the benchmarking submission process.
Support: You can add additional consultancy hours to your package for strategy development, specific projects or goals, workshops, academy courses, or advisory meetings to your plan.
Overview: You have a live dashboard where you can monitor your submission, see all your published benchmarking results, analyse your destination’s sustainability performance, and compare with others.
Recommendations: Once benchmarking is complete, we provide you with a “Performance Improvement Report”. This is a detailed review of your sustainability efforts that identifies opportunities and strengths, and offers a tailored list of recommendations based on your destination’s unique attributes.
Best practice: We provide you with helpful examples of vetted best practices to support and develop your sustainability contributions. Our database includes over 150 recent case studies from sustainable tourism and events around the world.
Start now Reach out to us if you are ready to take the next step on your sustainability journey.
GDS-Index Timeline
The below deadlines for the GDS-Movement team are in blue and the deadlines for the destinations are in green.
2026 GDS-Index Criteria Update
GDS Assessment: 1 June - 12 June
Performance Improvement Meetings
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Prepare Performance Improvement Reports
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GDS Assessment: 6 July - 31 July
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Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan26
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan27
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Pre-Assessment
Destination Update: 22 June - 3 July
Performance Improvement Meetings
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Destination Submission: 16 March - 29 May
Ranking Launch: September 2026
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