Measuring the role of Blue Flags in attracting sustainable ‘sun-and-sand’ tourism

ABSTRACT

Eco-labels such as Blue Flags can be effective for enhancing both sustainability and tourism. Given the ongoing political debate on the effectiveness of Blue Flags for promoting tourism, we analyze the impact of the number of Blue Flag beaches on tourist arrivals (international and domestic, respectively) for Spanish coastal provinces. Panel data techniques are used to evaluate Blue Flags econometrically for the longest and most recent time period in the literature (2000–2019). Findings suggest that Blue Flags are effective at promoting international tourism but not domestic tourism. Different patterns for international and domestic tourists mean that differentiated policies should be applied.

KEYWORDS:

• Blue Flags
• sustainable tourism
• sun-and-sand
• tourism demand
• Spain
• NUTS-3
• panel data

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to co-editor Colin Michael Hall and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Ceuta and Melilla are excluded to prevent any deviations due to their small size and tourist volumes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Andalusian Government of Spain (Junta de Andalucía. Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento) under Grant to I+D+i research projects (European Regional Development Funds) 2014-2020, number US-15508.