The Gold Coast Tourism Visioning project articulates a set of core values and principles that underpin a preferred future for the sustainable prosperity of Australia's leading tourism destination in the medium to longer term (10 to 20 years). It challenges destination Gold Coast to move from a past ad hoc approach to tourism to one that integrates economic, social and environmental dimensions to evolve new patterns of managing and growing tourism in a more systematic and dynamic way in this new century. Tourism is a key component of the inevitable transition to sustainable development strategies in advanced western democracies such as Australia.