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7th International Forum on Tourism Statistics
Stockholm, Sweden, 9-11 June 2004
INDICATORS TO MEASURE SUSTAINABILITY IN TOURISM
Presentation by Mr Eugenio Yunis
Head, Department of Sustainable Development of Tourism,
World Tourism Organization
Trends towards more sustainable tourism
As a result of the rapid expansion of the tourism sector, traditional and emerging tourism destinations are facing increasing pressure on their natural, cultural and socio-economic environments. There is now recognition that uncontrolled growth in tourism aiming at short-term benefits often results in negative impacts, harming the environment and societies, and destroying the very basis on which tourism is built and thrives. On the contrary, when tourism is planned, developed and managed using sustainable criteria, its benefits can spread through society and the natural and cultural environments.
Host societies have become progressively aware of the problems of unsustainable tourism, and sustainability concerns are increasingly being addressed in national, regional and local tourism policies, strategies and plans. In addition, more and more tourists are now demanding higher environmental standards from tourist services, as well as a greater commitment to local communities and economies.
Since the Rio Earth Summit, sustainability has become the central issue in tourism development policies throughout the world. Although the World Tourism Organization had been promoting environmentally friendly and culturally sensitive tourism policies, including methodological approaches for implementation since the mid-1980s, the Rio Summit clearly meant a turning point in the level of awareness about sustainable practices in tourism. Later on, the 7th meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 1999 was devoted to examine the tourism sector sustainability challenges. The work intensified in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development and for the International Year of Ecotourism, both during 2002. At the Johannesburg Summit, and in the resulting Plan of Implementation, the need for more Sustainable Tourism development is granted increased relevance, with a parallel recognition that it can be an important, and sometimes the only way for overcoming poverty in a large number of developing nations.
In this context, the World Tourism Organizations and other institutions have developed a series of instruments that make it possible to incorporate sustainability criteria in the planning, development and management of tourism. Let us mention the most recurrent: sustainable tourism development plans; Agenda 21 processes at the local level with the participation of all relevant stakeholders; legislation and regulations that control the use of territory for tourism purposes, integrating this sector in overall regional and local development and making it compatible with other sectors of activity; regulations on the use of heritage assets for tourism purposes; management plans for protected natural areas and archaeological sites; determination of the carrying capacity of tourism sites and respect for those limits by all the actors; systems for mandatory or voluntary sustainability certification; and last but not least, indicators to periodically measure a series of variables that affect the sustainability of tourism destinations.
Measuring the performance of the entire tourism sector, at the local, national or global level, and that of particular tourism enterprises, has traditionally concentrated in its economic and financial dimensions respectively, including sometimes its labour component. However, tourism infrastructures and facilities, as well as the activities undertaken by tourists have a much wider range of positive and negative impacts, ranging from those of an environmental nature as a result of, for example, the protection and management of a natural area for tourism or the construction and operation of transport and accommodation facilities, to those of a socio-cultural character due to the interaction between tourists and the host population.
Sustainability indicators
The modern approach, therefore, is to identify and measure the entire range of impacts that tourism can have in a particular area or society, preferably in advance of any development, so as to guarantee that such development will be sustainable in the long run from the economic, social, cultural and environmental points of view.
In other words, decision makers need accurate information on the impacts of tourism development and operations on the environmental and socio-cultural conditions of destinations, as well as on the progress made as results of management actions. Sustainability indicators are essential tools for providing this information, and constitute fundamental building blocks in tourism planning, management and monitoring processes.
In the context of sustainable tourism development, indicators are information sets which are formally selected for a regular use to measure changes in assets and issues that are key for the tourism development and management of a given destination. Indicators are measures expressed in single numbers, percentage or ratios, qualitative descriptions or existence/non-existence of certain elements concerning environmental, social and economic issues. They are signals of current issues, emerging situations or problems, need for action and results of actions.
Good sustainability indicators must be easy to understand, as well as economically and technically feasible to measure. Some of the benefits from good indicators include:
· Better decision-making, in order to lowering risks or costs
· Identification of emerging risks and or conflictive issues, thus allowing prevention
· Identification of impacts, to allow for timely corrective action when needed
· Performance measurement of the implementation of development plans and management actions, i.e. evaluating progress in the sustainable development of tourism
· Reduced risk of planning mistakes, thus identifying limits and opportunities
· Greater public accountability; i.e. providing credible information for the public and other tourism stakeholders fosters accountability for its wise use in decision-making
· Constant monitoring can lead to continuous improvement.
There are different types of indicators, each with different utility to decision-makers:
· Early warning indicators (e.g., decline in numbers of tourists who intend to return)
· Indicators of stresses on the system (e.g., water shortages, or crime indices)
· Measures of the current state of the industry (e.g., occupancy rate, level of tourists’ satisfaction)
· Measures of the impact of tourism development on the biophysical and socio-economic environments (e.g. indices of the level of deforestation, changes of consumption patterns and income levels in local communities)
· Measures of management efforts (e.g., cleanup cost of coastal contamination)
· Measures of management effect, results or performance (e.g., changed pollution levels, greater number of returning tourists)
At each tourism destination there exist certain data and information that can serve as indicators if their relevance to sustainability issues is understood. The most commonly used and better-understood indicators are of economic aspects like tourism revenues and expenditures, tourism base line data and statistics like tourist arrivals, overnights spent, accommodation capacities, etc. These data are conventionally used to measure the success of the tourism industry, but they are also essential information to a number of sustainability issues, which are related to tourist numbers and levels of stress on resources. For example, environmental issues, such as water supply or waste (water consumption per tourist or per room, amount of waste produced by tourists in peak seasons), or social issues related to host communities (ratio of tourists and host population in different periods of the year) can only be effectively understood when linked to tourist numbers.
The World Tourism Organization’s Indicators Initiative
Since 1992, WTO has been active in the effort to develop and implement indicators that help in the sustainable development of tourism at different destinations. Started as a means to address sustainability issues at all scales, the programme has been most successful in its efforts to aid managers of tourism destinations to anticipate and prevent damage to their product, and thereby to foster sustainable tourism at a destination-specific scale. In 1995-96 a manual for indicator development was prepared based on initial pilot tests in Canada, USA, Mexico, Netherlands and Argentina. Since the publication of the manual, there have been several regional workshops and case studies, including those organized by the World Tourism Organization in Argentina, Croatia Hungary, Mexico and Sri Lanka, where over 400 participants from some 50 nations learnt about indicators application, helping at the same time to advance the methodology, focusing on specific cases to ensure practical application and testing of the approach.
Based on a comprehensive one-year long review of our own international experiences and those of some selected governments, and with the involvement of around 60 experts, WTO has recently produced a revised guide and resource book on sustainable tourism indicators. The new guide focuses on indicator application at local destinations, but also covering applications at regional and national levels. It contains, firstly, a general overview of the use of indicators and their role in tourism policy and planning; secondly, it recommends a procedure for indicators development; thirdly, it presents a categorized list of common issues and indicators concerning most types of destination and, finally, it illustrates indicator applications at a number of destination types (e.g. coastal and island, ecotourism, urban, rural, etc.).
WTO is currently developing regional programmes to disseminate the new guide and train tourism managers on the application of sustainability indicators.
A large menu of suggested indicators
The new WTO guide describes around 50 major sustainability issues and makes recommendations for indicators to measure them. Concrete application examples are provided for each issue and there are around 20 case studies included for complete indicator application frameworks at different destinations. The sustainability issues are grouped as socio-cultural, economic, environmental, management and global issues and cover a wide range of topics from the satisfaction of local communities and tourists, through the management of natural resources (e.g. water, energy, waste), land use, seasonality, employment, health and safety, planning process, just to mention a few of them.
This long list of issues and their 200 or so indicators are not meant to be a prescription for tourism managers. It is rather for providing guidance, allowing managers to select the issues that are most relevant to their destinations and their area of work, and to have clearer ideas on indicators application and measurement techniques. For this reason, an essential part of the guidebook deals with a suggested procedure for indicators development that suits best the specific needs of each destination.
A suggested procedure for indicators development
At the outset, it has to be recognized that different destinations have very differing levels of tourism planning and regulation processes. In destinations where a tourism strategy and planning process is already in place, focusing on sustainability indicators can help improving data sources, analyzing and reporting processes. At destinations where a formal planning process has not yet been started, the indicators development procedure can be a catalyst for it. The recommended procedure, therefore, contains some basic elements of tourism planning, and specializing on indicators evaluation to select the most relevant and feasible ones. The main elements of this procedure are the following:
Research and OrganizationA. Definition/delineation of the destination
B. Use of participatory processes
C. Identification of tourism assets and risks; situation analysis
D. Long-term vision for a destination
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Indicators DevelopmentE. Selection of priority issues and policy questions
F. Identification of Desired Indicators
G. Inventory of data sources
H. Indicators selection
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Implementation of indicatorsI. Evaluation of feasibility/implementation procedures
J. Data collection and analysis
K. Accountability and Communication
L. Monitoring and Evaluation of Results
The main criteria for selecting sustainability indicators in tourism are:
§ Relevance of the indicator to the selected issue
§ Feasibility of obtaining and analysing the needed information
§ Credibility of the information and reliability for users of the data
§ Clarity and understandability to users
§ Comparability over time and across jurisdictions or regions
In summary, responsible decision-making has to be based on reliable information, and this is why tourism managers have to work with well-defined indicators. Besides supporting tourism planning and monitoring processes, indicators are also important tools of communication. Even at a local destination level, the complexity of stakeholder and interest groups cannot be underestimated, and they all need to understand the implications of tourism development and tourist activities. Indicators can provide them with the necessary information that supports their active involvement and commitment towards an urgent and unavoidable responsibility of public and private tourism managers: to achieve a more sustainable tourism sector and to contribute more strongly to sustainable development and poverty alleviation, the two major challenges of our contemporary societies.
Thank you.
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