Integrated planning for sustainable tourism and mobility. A tourism traffic analysis in Italy's South Tyrol region

Abstract

Emerging tourist market trends are compelling destinations to consider mobility as an essential strategic component of sustainable tourism planning. Tourism mobility analysis is a tool available to policy-makers when developing integrated and effective sustainable transport and tourism policies. This paper introduces an innovative tourism-traffic analysis based on survey techniques which allows the identification of tourism-related components and an estimate of their environmental impact on a destination, information critical to the development of appropriate mobility management measures. This methodology was implemented in Italy's South Tyrol region, an alpine province at the forefront of sustainable tourism and mobility innovation. The significant environmental impact of tourism traffic revealed in the destination justifies the innovative steps taken toward sustainable mobility in two pilot case studies covering eight communities. An exploratory desk analysis shows that neither the push – encouraging sustainable behavior – nor the pull – discouraging unsustainable practices – mobility measures adopted in these pilot areas decreased tourism flows; however, they did succeed in providing more environmentally sustainable means of transport, with reduced emissions. And in a majority of cases, tourism flows increased above the regional average. A range of problems with the existing methodology are described, along with key issues for future research.

可持续性旅游和流动性的综合规划。意大利南蒂罗尔地区的旅游交通分析

出现的旅游市场趋势是那些引人注目的目的地都会将流动性考虑为可持续旅游规划的一个重要的战略部分。旅游流动性分析是政策制订者在发展整体的和有效的可持续性交通和旅游政策时可用的工具。该文章介绍了一个创新性的旅游交通分析，这是基于能帮助收集旅游相关的组成部分的鉴定，和他们对在一个目的地的环境影响；对发展合适流动性管理衡量方法的重要信息，这些调查的技巧。这个研究方法在意大利南蒂罗尔地区实施。该地区位于阿尔卑斯省，并是位于可持续旅游和流动性创新的第一线。对旅游交通的重要环境影响揭示了在两个面及八大社区的试点案例中证实了创新的步骤是向着可持续的流动性的。一个探索性的文献分析显示出不论是``推" - 鼓励可持续性行为 - 或是``拉" - 不鼓励非可持续性的实践 - 在这些试点案例中使用的流动性衡量降低了旅游流量；但是他们在提供更环境可持续性的减少排放交通方式上是成功的。在大部分的案例中旅游流量提升高过区域水平。已存在的方法中一系列的问题都有被描述到，为将来研究的主要问题也讨论到。

Keywords:

• sustainable mobility
• tourism planning
• tourism traffic analysis
• environmental impact
• mobility management measures

关键词:

• 可持续流动性
• 旅游规划
• 旅游交通分析
• 环境影响
• 流动性管理衡量

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge methodological support received from Dr Ludwig Castlunger (Provincial Statistics Institute of Bolzano), Professor Pier Luigi Novi Inverardi (University of Trento) and Dr Marco Giuliani (University of Bologna/EURAC research). Helpful comments and assistance from the journal co-editor and four anonymous reviewers in improving this paper are also gratefully acknowledged.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Scuttari

Anna Scuttari is a scientific researcher at the Institute for Regional Development and Location Management at the European Academy of Bozen-Bolzano (EURAC research), Italy. Her research fields include tourism and sustainable mobility, destination management and governance, regional development and customer satisfaction.

Maria Della Lucia

Maria Della Lucia is an assistant professor of economics and management at the University of Trento in Italy and a member of the eTourism research group (http://etourism.economia.unitn.it). She teaches marketing, strategy, destination management and models of local development. Her research interests include local/regional development, destination management and governance, sustainable tourism and well-being, sustainable mobility, event management and marketing, and economic impact analysis as an investment decision-making tool. She focuses on community-based alpine and rural destinations.

Umberto Martini

Umberto Martini is a full professor of economics and management at the University of Trento in Italy and a senior member of the eTourism research group (http://etourism.economia.unitn.it). He teaches marketing and tourism marketing. He is the scientific coordinator of the School of Tourism Management at the Trentino School of Management. His research interests include tourism management and marketing, tourist behavior and decision-making, and service quality, with a focus on community destinations, particularly alpine destinations.