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.