A comprehensive framework for comparing water use intensity across different tourist types

Abstract

Tourism products vary in their direct and indirect (supply chain) water use, as well as in their economic contribution. Hence, water-scarce destinations require a method to estimate and compare water use intensity (water use in relation to economic output) for different kinds of tourist products in order to optimise their tourism offering. The present study develops an original framework that integrates segmentation with an environmentally extended input–output (EEIO) framework based on detailed tourism expenditure data and tourism satellite accounts (TSAs) in order to quantify the total (direct and indirect) economic impact and water use for multiple tourism segments. To demonstrate the rigour of the methodology, it is applied to the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The results show that cheaper forms of tourism tend to have a significantly lower total water use and, depending on the economic impact indicator of interest, may have above-average economic contribution per unit of expenditure. The proposed framework provides a significant step towards achieving sustainable water use through destination-specific estimates of water use intensity which take into consideration segment-specific attributes. It is envisaged that this could eventually lead to customised interventions for diverse tourism market segments.

对比不同旅游者类型的水使用密度的综合框架

旅游产品在它们的直接和间接(供应链)用水以及经济贡献方面各有不同。因此, 缺水的目的地需要一个方法来估计和比较不同种类旅游产品的水资源利用强度(用水与经济产出)，以优化他们的旅游产品。本研究发展了一个集成分割的环境扩展输入-输出(EEIO)的原始框架，以详细的旅游支出数据和旅游卫星账户(TSAs)作为基础，来直接和间接得量化多个旅游领域的经济影响和总用水量。为了证明方法的严谨性，本文应用东地中海的塞浦路斯岛作为案例研究。结果表明, 便宜的旅游形式总用水量往往很低，根据利益的经济影响指标，可能高于平均水平的经济贡献单位支出。拟议的框架提供了实现可持续用水重要的一步，通过水的使用强度而考虑到板块的属性的目的地的特定估计。按照设想, 这可能最终导致定制干预多元化的旅游细分市场。

Keywords:

• environmental indicators
• sustainable tourism
• market segmentation
• environmentally extended input–output
• water footprint
• environmental management

关键词:

• 可持续旅游
• 市场细分
• 环境扩展输入-输出
• 水足迹
• 环境管理

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the data contribution from the Cyprus Statistical Service (CYSTAT) and thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cvp-jost.

Notes

1. The consumption accounting principle (CAP) attributes resource use or emissions to the end consumer irrespective of the origin of products or services (Sun, 2014). By contrast, the production accounting principle (PAP) attributes all resource use or emissions to the producing region. According to Munday et al. (2013) and Sun (2014), the ideal accounting principle for capturing all carbon emissions associated with aviation lies in between the PAP and the CAP. This argument does not apply to water accounting where CAP is the appropriate accounting principle (as seen in Cazcarro et al., 2014).

2. TSAs are satellite accounts of the core national accounts compiled from visitor expenditure data, industry data, and supply and use relationships in the System of National Accounts (Dwyer, Forsyth, & Dwyer, 2010).

3. I is a matrix with the same dimensions as A, with 1s on the main diagonal and zeroes elsewhere.

4. This assumes that the virtual water content of imported goods is equal to that of equivalent local goods.

5. Expenditure included the following expenditure categories (sectors): transport, accommodation, food and drink, clothing and footwear, health, communications, culture and recreation, and other.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michalis Hadjikakou

Michalis Hadjikakou is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. At UNSW, Michalis is a member of the Sustainability Assessment Program (SAP) team at the Water Research Centre and is actively engaged in research on water management, sustainable tourism and broader sustainability assessment, including environmental footprinting. He has a special interest in the use of EEIO analysis for quantifying the environmental and economic impacts associated with different consumption patterns.

Graham Miller

Graham Miller is a professor of sustainability in business and head of the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey, UK. Graham is interested in the forces that drive a transition towards a more sustainable tourism industry, with a particular focus on indicators and monitoring of sustainability.

Jonathan Chenoweth

Jonathan Chenoweth completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2000 on the institutional dimensions of water resources management before working as a researcher in the Middle East for two years. Since September 2002 he has worked as an academic in the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, UK, focused upon water resources and environmental management. He researches on water policy and sustainable development in developed and developing regions, including in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Angela Druckman

Angela Druckman is a senior lecturer in sustainable energy and climate change mitigation at the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey, UK. Angela's research focuses on sustainable consumption and production, with special interest in exploring the linkages between lifestyles and carbon emissions in order to inform policies aimed at moving towards a low carbon society.

Christos Zoumides

Christos Zoumides is a postdoctoral fellow at the Energy, Environment and Water Research Center (EEWRC) of the Cyprus Institute. His research interests focus on water management, virtual water trade and water footprint, and sustainability indicators.