An integrative framework for sustainability evaluation in tourism: applying the framework to tourism product development in Finnish Lapland

Abstract

The adoption of sustainable practices has become widespread in tourism and has led to the proliferation of sustainability evaluation tools. They focus mainly on measuring outcomes, making scientific expertise an essential part of evaluations. This study argues that involving stakeholders throughout the evaluation process is essential if evaluation is to play a role in promoting the necessary understanding of sustainability to address the ecological and social concerns within a tourism setting. Drawing upon multi-stakeholder thinking, ethics, the Bellagio Principles and action research, this paper introduces a theoretical and methodological framework for engaging tourism organisations in collaboration with stakeholders in planning and implementing sustainability evaluations. The application of the framework is illustrated using a study of tourism product development, involving a group of eight craft-based entrepreneurs and their stakeholders in Finnish Lapland. A focus is placed on using ethical theories to promote dialogue and critical reflection and to expose the plurality of moral orientations behind the multiple views of sustainable tourism. Through discourse analysis, four moral discourses, ethical egoism, utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics, are constructed and examined. The paper shows how each influences the various ways in which stakeholders perceive sustainable tourism and the practical outcomes of the process.

旅游中的可持续性评估的一种综合性框架：将框架运用在芬兰拉普兰的旅游产品发展中

可持续实践的采用已经在旅游中广泛开来，并且引导了可持续性评估工具的扩散运用。这些工具主要集中在衡量结果，将科学化的专业知识作为评估的重要部分。该研究认为，如果评估在旅游设定中为体现生态和社会认知而促进对可持续性的必需的理解上扮演一个角色，那么在整个评估过程中包括利益相关者是必需的。通过多方利益相关者思考，伦理，贝拉原则和行动研究这些文献中，该文章介绍了一种为在规划和实施可持续性评估中将旅游组织和利益相关者的合作联系起来的理论化和方法化的框架。该框架的应用是通过使用一个旅游产品发展的例子来阐述的。这个例子包括在芬兰拉普兰的一组八个手工业的商人和他们的利益相关者。一个着重点是使用伦理理论来促进对话和批判性反思，并且揭示可持续旅游的多种观点背后的多种道德出发点。通过话语分析，四种道德论述，包括伦理利己主义，功利主义，道义和美德伦理，在研究中建立并检验。该文章体现了每种道德论述是如何影响多种利益相关者理解可持续性旅游和该过程的实际结果的。

Keywords:

• sustainability
• evaluation
• stakeholders
• tourism product development
• ethics
• action research

关键词:

• 可持续性
• 评估
• 利益相关者
• 旅游产品发展
• 伦理
• 行动研究

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professor of Marketing Anu Valtonen and the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.