The impact of sustainable tourism indicators on destination competitiveness: the European Tourism Indicator System

Figures & data

Figure 1. Potential and realised capacity in the use of sustainability indicators for policy making.

Table 1. ETIS. Conclusions from each implementation step. Source: Adapted from Romagosa and Sirse (2016).

ETIS step	Main conclusion
Step 1 Awareness raising	Lack of media support and co-operation from partner organisations
Step 2 Creation of a destination profile	Destination profile form applicable and minimal difficulties in filling it
Step 3 Forming Stakeholder Working Group (SWG)	Inactive members of the SWG, and more interest from the public sector than from the private
Step 4 Role/Responsibilities of SWG	Difficulties on agreeing about timeline for data collection, and minor challenges on responsibilities
Step 5 Collecting & registering data	Data difficult to obtain, and/or resources were not available
Step 6 Analysis of results	SWG agreement on priorities but difficulties to agree on action plans
Step 7 Continuity & Improvement	Indicators and data are not reviewed regularly and additional resources are difficult obtained

Figure 2. ETIS-related publications over time.

Table 2. ACAP. Evidence collected from the case studies.

ETIS requirement	Yes, explicitly	Yes, implicitly	No	No data
Acquisition	48.6%	10.8%	8.1%	32.4%
	59.5%		8.1%	32.4%
1. Create Awareness	40.4%		6.1%	53.5%
1.a. Existence of local destination coordinator	24.2%	21.2%	6.1%	48.5%
1.b. Communication decision to stakeholders	45.4%	3.0%	6.1%	45.4%
1.c. Gaining political support, publicly announced	15.1%	12.1%	6.1%	66.7%
2. Create destination profile	33.3%		6.1%	60.6%
2.a. Destinations that have completed a destination profile form or equivalent	12.1%	21.2%	6.1%	60.6%
Assimilation	47.2%	5.6%	8.3%	38.9%
	52.8%		8.3%	38.9%
3. Form stakeholder working group (SWG)	60.6%		6.1%	33.3%
3.a. Presence of SWG	54.5%	18.2%	6.1%	21.2%
3.b. Evidence of SWG activity	36.4%	12.1%	6.1%	45.4%
4. Establish roles and responsibilities	33.3%		6.1%	60.6%
4.a. Agreement on setting targets, taking action and planning how to achieve these aims	33.3%	–	6.1%	60.6%
5. Collect and record data	36.4%		7.1%	56.6%
5.a. List of data already existing, how regularly	9.1%	21.2%	6.1%	63.6%
5.b. List of data not existing, and which of this data has been collected, how regularly	12.1%	27.3%	9.1%	51.5%
5.c. Number of indicators for which there is data	30.3%	9.1%	6.1%	54.5%
Transformation	16.7%	5.6%	5.6%	72.2%
	22.2%		5.6%	72.2%
6. Analyse results	16.7%		6.1%	77.3%
6.a. Short term prioritisation	9.1%	9.1%	6.1%	75.8%
6.b. Setting a short-term action plan	12.1%	3.0%	6.1%	78.8%
Exploitation	5.6%	2.8%	5.6%	86.1%
	8.3%		5.6%	86.1%
7. Enable ongoing development and continuous improvement	18.2%		9.1%	72.7%
7.a. Medium-long term sustainability plan	18.2%	–	9.1%	72.7%

Table 3. The design of sustainable tourism indicators.

Challenge	Identified action	Importance (5= very important, 1= not important)
Knowledge acquisition: Capture basic information	Use of available Open Data	4.5
	Design and implement estimations of already existing data	3.9
	Make use of already existing (public and private) records for the local level on sustainability data	3.7
	Use of georeferenced data	3.7
	Design and implement new surveys	3.1
	Investment on Big Data	2.8
Knowledge acquisition: Methodological development	Design an indicator system that is sustainable over time	4.7
	Co-design methodologies with both producers and users of indicators	4.7
	Address geographical scale of the destination	4.5
	Use spatial data	3.8
Knowledge assimilation: Reconciliation of producers and users of data	Capacity building to use data for decision making	4.3
	Capacity building of data producers to communicate data in a user-friendly manner	4.2
	Consensus among producers and users of the aim of measuring sustainability – coherence with the tourism sustainable strategy	3.9
	Capacity building to media on how to interpret data	3.3

Source: authors, from MITOMED + Interreg project, Malaga (Spain) April 4-6 2018.

Table 4. The use of sustainable tourism indicators.

Challenges	Identified actions	Importance (5= very important, 1= not important)
Knowledge transformation: Make organisational changes to optimise the management of sustainability	Create audit reports and improvement plans as result from the indicators.	4.5
	Create a participatory entity with different stakeholders, e.g. local economic cluster. Get the destination staff to redesign and adapt the system.	4.4
	Re-design the role of the DMO from marketing towards management	4.3
	Create a sustainability dashboard with easy traffic light system. Make data simple, pre-analyse it (provide numbers that are digested).	4.3
	Value the role of data development. Create ownership of data. Get government buy in to approve action plans and budgets.	4.1
	Upstream delegation. Use the locally collected data to push issues at national agendas and national institutions.	3.9
	Delegate the sustainability management process to specific business unit or separate NGO.	3.2
Knowledge transformation: Introduce sustainability measures based on evidence from indicators	Benchmark: Compare with other destinations	4.2
	Develop trust amongst stakeholders for the implementing body.	4.1
	Cost: Find way of making the measure cost-neutral or for cost to be absorbed within general budgets.	4.0
	Create new products that act as demonstration examples.	3.9
	Buy in: Identify an issue that most stakeholders agree is important at the same time.	3.9
	Relevance: Learn to make indicators audience-relevant.	3.8
	Timely: organise events that highlight experiences from other destinations and that get your organisation to have to showcase their own work.	3.8
	Time: Allocate expert input to manage the action.	3.7
Knowledge exploitation: Upscale from an individual sustainability measure to a complete sustainability strategy	Skills: reskill staff to understand what sustainability is and how it affects their job.	4.5
	Merge sustainability and quality criteria. Integrate sustainability indicators in broader policy debates.	4.5
	Co-production: improve communication amongst departments.	4.2
	Ensure that sustainability is written within the legal framework and or the organisational objectives.	4.1
	Values: change what is considered important.	4.1
	Link one’s own indicators to Sustainable Development Goals, Green Destinations, ETIS, global foot printing/supra-regional programme for justification, funding and framework of understanding.	3.9
	Create index for overview of sustainability in the destination.	3.7

Source: authors, from MITOMED + Interreg project, Malaga (Spain) 4–6 April 2018.

Romagosa, F., & Sirse, J. (2016). Results of the 2nd ETIS pilot implementation phase and lessons learnt. Paper presented at the European Tourism Indicator System for Sustainable Destinations – ETIS – Joint Conference on Managing and Promoting Sustainable and Accessible Tourism Destinations. http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/15349, Brussels. http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/15349

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