Destination Readiness: the McKinsey model for growing while continuing to exist. Intercepting pressure signals to anticipate stress phenomena

In an era where tourism risks becoming the rapid consumption of places and images, the challenge for destinations is no longer merely attracting visitors, but continuing to exist as vibrant, authentic and sustainable places.
In this session, McKinsey presents a data-driven approach to 'Destination Readiness': a model that measures a territory's capacity to accommodate tourist flows while preserving economic balance, the quality of life of local communities and the value of the experience for the visitor. The framework is structured around six key dimensions: local economy, community, tourist experience, infrastructure, natural environment, culture and heritage.
Through the integration of public and private sources — telco data, transport, booking, ticketing, social sentiment — it is possible to read in real time the pressure signals on the territory, anticipate stress phenomena and intervene before congestion compromises the identity and liveability of the destination.
The objective is not to manage more tourists, but to generate better tourism: distributing flows across time and space, enhancing local economies and the 'behind the scenes' of communities, and activating new concrete levers — from dynamic information to pricing, from mobility to bookings and governance — in order to build competitive, sustainable and deeply human growth.