How-to-use-sustainability-indicators-for-tourism-planning-The-case-of-rural-tourism-in-Andalusia-(Spain).pdf

how to use sustainability indicators for tourism planning the case of rural tourism in andalusia spain f j blancas a m lozano oyolaa m gonz lezb f m guerreroa r caballerob a department of economics quantitative methods and economic history pablo de olavide university seville spain b department of applied economics mathematics malaga university malaga spain a b s t r a c ta r t i c l ei n f o article history received 13 june 2011 received in revised form 23 september 2011 accepted 23 september 2011 available online xxxx keywords rural tourism indicators system composite indicators principal component analysis distance sustainable tourism this paper proposes an indicators system to analyse the sustainability of tourist activity at rural destinations in countries with a consolidated tourism sector the proposed system aims at providing tourist managers and policy makers with information to better understand the transition to sustainability at specifi c destinations and to encourage them to carry out corresponding policy and management responses to illustrate how in dicators can be quantifi ed we create a practical guideline on how to use the statistical information available likewise we suggest a method for obtaining sustainability indexes by aggregation that reduces the subjectiv ity associated with the composite indicator this procedure is based on the combination of principal compo nent analysis and distance to a reference point together with the defi nition of sustainable tourism indicators we explain how to use these systems and sus tainability indexes to fulfi l three practical uses in tourism sector planning the comparison and characterisa tion of destinations the defi nition of benchmarking practices and the quantifi cation of sustainable tourism objectives each practical use is illustrated using the case of rural zones in a consolidated destination such as andalusia 2011 elsevier b v all rights reserved 1 introduction in recent years the international tourism market has experienced increasing competition destinations invest into tourism research to understand their market their competitive positioning and most im portant how they can use this knowledge to successfully attract tour ists as a result a large number of tourists are concentrated in some tourist areas so massive infl ux of tourists have led to the rapid degra dation of natural resources and ecosystems therefore the strong in teraction between the human activities and environmental quality has been the basis of seeking suitable policies to guarantee develop ment opportunities and mitigate their impacts on the environment kitsiou et al 2002 in this context the world tourism organization wto has noted the need to manage destinations to achieve sustain able tourist activity in the long term world tourism organization 1993 in response several national governments have instituted sec tor planning following the defi nition of a tourism model characterised by diversity while respecting quality and social issues and by eco nomic and environmental sustainability the aim is to reconcile the development of increasingly competitive tourist activity with the protection and conservation of natural and cultural resources that support such activity from a practical point of view actions and initiatives developed in each destination must be formulated in the territory itself to which they are in turn addressed therefore the public and private local agents must implement improvements regarding the sustainability of tourist activity however until now the actions developed at a local level have not led to any signifi cant change in tourism produc tion and consumption patterns comisi n europea 2003 2007 in practice it appears that there is neither information nor suffi cient in centives to create more sustainable practices in destinations to remedy this situation the local agents need analytic tools to make a specifi c diagnosis of the state of the destination as well as to identify and evaluate the aspects that determine the degree of sus tainable tourism for which action is required blancas et al 2010a landford 2009 yunis 2004 also these tools must allow local agents to assess the impacts of human activities on the quality of the envi ronment for decision making one of the instruments most frequently used to evaluate tourism sustainability in a destination is a system of sustainable tourism indi cators sustainable tourism indicators are defi ned as the set of mea sures that provide the necessary information to better understand the links between the impact of tourism on the cultural and natural set ting in which this takes place and on which it is strongly dependent world tourism organization 1996 the information provided by an indicators system is an aid to understanding the situation of the tour ist sector in order to detect and prevent problems at the beginning and design corrective measures science of the total environment xxx 2011 xxx xxx corresponding authors tel 34 954349279 fax 34 954349339 e mail address fjblaper upo es f j blancas stoten 12961 no of pages 18 0048 9697 see front matter 2011 elsevier b v all rights reserved doi 10 1016 j scitotenv 2011 09 066 contents lists available at sciverse sciencedirect science of the total environment journal homepage please cite this article as blancas fj et al how to use sustainability indicators for tourism planning the case of rural tourism in andalusia spain sci total environ 2011 doi 10 1016 j scitotenv 2011 09 066 at the international level various studies have attempted to de fi ne indicators systems for sustainable tourism nevertheless most of these systems have been designed to evaluate developing destina tions or present a theoretical defi nition of the indicators system but do not fully quantify it innes and booher 2000 bell and morse 2001 bosh 2002 farsari and prastacos 2002 gudmundsson 2003 dhakal and imura 2003 hezri 2004 this inhibits the provision of guidelines to integrate the information provided by indicators in policy making processes thus thedefi nitionofappropriateindicatorssystemsforestablished destinationshas beenleftaside we considerthatthesedestinationsre quireanindicators systemasanalytic toolbecausemanagingtourist ac tivity in a sustainable way is very complex although these destinations have the necessary infrastructure they face saturation problems re garding the exploitation of their resources or inadequate planning in this context key questions arise how should these indicators be used in practice what potential do they have as analytical tools these questions generally remain answered when indicators systems for sustainable tourism are proposed from our point of view if we want a system to be operational and easy to apply in assessing the sta tus of a destination a practical guideline is required to quantify the sys tem and to use the relevant information given this background this study proposes a methodology for the multi dimensional evaluation in order to fulfi l the following objectives fig 1 the fi rst is to defi ne a system of sustainable tourism indicators suitable for analysing the sustainability of tourist activity at established destinations the system we propose assesses the situation of destina tionsincountrieswithintensivetourismactivitybasedonthetradition al tourism model and that are starting to develop a new and growing tourism segment rural tourism by studying these destinations we can illustrate the potential of the indicators system to sustainably ma nage growing tourist activity and thereby avoid production and inten sive consumption patterns encountered in other tourist sectors in the same country we also establish the practical guidelines to defi ne the data base that will fully quantify the indicators system and to facilitate the interpretation of each indicator included in the defi nition of the system theproposedsystemconsistsofahighnumberofindicatorsthatas sess a wide range of sustainability issues therefore the second objec tive is to obtain a measure that provides an overall assessment of the status of each destination without having to analyse the initial indicators separately to obtain this measure we adopt an aggregate approach by constructing indexes based on information from the initial system these sustainability indexes are obtained using a new method that has been adopted to reduce the associated subjectivity and that generates so called synthetic dpc ie distance principal components indicators blancas et al 2010b blancas et al 2010c a third objective is to conduct an empirical analysis that illustrates how these tools can be used in practice specifi cally we use the indi cators system and the composite indicators obtained for analysing the sustainability of rural destinations in andalusia spain given these objectives the structure of this paper is as follows in section 2 we defi ne the proposed indicators system which is used to manage rural tourism at established destinations we also present how to defi ne a database to quantify the system in the next section we establish the method used to obtain composite indicators section 4 presents the practical uses of sustainable tourism indicators as plan ning tools we then present the results of the empirical study con ducted at a rural destination in andalusia spain and fi nally provide the conclusions 2 a proposed system of sustainable tourism indicators for the management of rural tourism at established destinations specifi cally our objective is to defi ne a sustainability indicators system that provides a sound basis for rural tourism planning and decision making at established destinations in recent decades the issue of sustainability indicators has became an industry in its own right nix 1996 king et al 2000 shown by the increasing interest in the scientifi c aspects of developing indicators thus a large number of sustainability indicator sets have been defi ned for tourist destina tions although they involve different perspectives manning 1999 miller 2001 valls et al 2004 choi and siracaya 2006 sancho and garc a 2006 sancho et al 2007 however the integration of sus tainability indicators into actual policy making is only beginning to be addressed innes and booher 2000 bell and morse 2001 bosh 2002 dhakal and imura 2003 gudmundsson 2003 hezri 2004 the sustainability indicators systems that have been developed to date are quite limited regarding their integration into tourism plan ning and decision making processes vila et al 2010 these systems are tools to measure a tourist destination s sustainability but only use result based indicators and these do not provide suitable information practical analysis how to use indicators and indexes 1 ranking and comparative analysis 2 benchmarking destinations 3 quantification of objectives indicators social economic environmental indicators system definition database aggregation dpc sustainability indexes dimensional global objective 1 objective 2 objective 3 guidelines fig 1 multidimensional evaluation method for established destinations 2f j blancas et al science of the total environment xxx 2011 xxx xxx please cite this article as blancas fj et al how to use sustainability indicators for tourism planning the case of rural tourism in andalusia spain sci total environ 2011 doi 10 1016 j scitotenv 2011 09 066 on what should be done to defi ne more sustainable tourist activity in this context we present a sustainability indicators system composed of elements that provide information related to tourism planning that destination managers must implement to achieve sustainable tourism thus we consider that indicators are relevant if they effec tively address the key issues associated with planning and the man agement of a destination they must also be feasible to collect and analyse and practical to put in place world tourism organization 2004 in this way the proposed system avoids limitations previously mentioned the defi nition of the elements of the system depends on two key is sues the concept of sustainable tourism that is measured and the set of destinations that are evaluated regarding the concept of sustainable tourism we adopt an institutional defi nition based on satisfying the needs of present and future generations following the concept provided by the wto world tourism organization 1993 thus interpreting this from the viewpoint of convergence clarke 1997 hardy et al 2002 the convergence position establishes that sustainable tourism is a goal that all tourism regardless of scale must strive to achieve also authors holding this position accept that the absence of a precise defi nition of a sustainable tourism goal is less important than a general movement in the correct direction as such we formulate the system of indicators suchthatlocalagentscanclearlyestablishthestrategytofollow hunter 2002 usingtourismpoliciesthathelpprotectthenatural socialandcul turalresourcesthatensurethedestination sabilitytosatisfytheneedsof tourists and residents sharpley 2000 liu 2003 moreover the elements of the proposed system should allow us to consider the characteristics of the destinations analysed namely rural zones at established destinations thus a defi nition of rural tourism is required international studies show that there is no single accepted defi nition barke 2004 as lane 1994 establishes most studies de fi ne rural tourism as tourism that takes place in rural areas the delim itation of rural areas in a region uses population density criteria or the characteristics of the area frochot 2005 thus we must bear in mind that rural destinations may be very heterogeneous regarding in frastructures and facilities for public use and in their potential as table 1 social indicators of sustainable tourism sustainability issuepractical componentijindicatorpractical guideline social cultural effects of tourism on the host community capacity of services for sports activities ik1sports facilities per inhabitanta high value for the indicators in this group indicates a positive indirect infl uence of tourism on the destination s capacity to provide basic services to visitors and residentscapacity of health servicesik2health care equipment capacity of transport servicesik3number of passenger transport vehicles per inhabitant capacity of fi nancial servicesik4 number of fi nancial establishments per inhabitant capacity of other servicesik5number of service sector establishments per inhabitant capacity of chemist s servicesik6number of chemist s per inhabitant local public safetytourist satisfaction with destination safety ik7evaluation of destination safety by tourists this indicator measures the visitor s level of perceived safety and the effi ciency of the safety services conservation of the cultural heritage heritage designated as assets worthy of cultural protection ik8number of cultural sites designated as assets of cultural interest this indicator assesses managers actions to ensure the preservation and protection of cultural identity in the destination s community such that the heritage fulfi ls its social function voluntary contributions to preservation of cultural heritage ik9number of cultural volunteersthe community s efforts to preserve their cultural resources are evaluated by this indicator intensity of heritage useik10pressure on cultural heritage this indicator provides a measure of the infl ux supported by each heritage unit such that greater pressure implies greater negative impact and increased deterioration effects on the local population structure sustaining population levelsik11variation of population levelsa tourist destination is considered more sustainable when the level of the resident population is maintained and there is a balanced population structure increase in the young populationik12percentage of young population ageing of the populationik13percentage of non active older population population densityik14number of individuals per unit destination area sustaining population levelsik15net migration rate sustaining population levelsik16rate of natural increase social carrying capacity of the destination imposition of foreign culture i e pressure on host culture ik17percentage of foreign populationthis indicator measures the preservation of traditions and local cultural practices a high level of tourism and increased numbers of foreigners as residents may lead to the visitor culture dominating the native culture social carrying capacityik18ratio of tourists to localsthis indicator assesses and establishes limits regarding the number of tourists the local community can welcome without a negative impact effects on levels of well being among local population effect on social conditions that affect population longevity ik19life expectancygreater longevity indicates an indirect positive effect of tourism development on the social conditioning factors that lead to this effects on available incomeik20variation of available income this evaluates the indirect infl uence of tourism development on the socioeconomic level of the resident population in relation to variations in their income level effects on educational levels of population ik21percentage of population enrolled in noncompulsory education an increased educational level among the local population ensures that the visitors are treated politely and enriches the interaction between cultures effects on population dependencyik22general demographic dependency index this measures the effects of tourism on increasing the dependent population greater dependency hinders the transfer of resources in a culture effects on access to housingik26property value of real estate per inhabitant increased tourism may lead to increases in land and house prices thus hindering access to housing among residents 3f j blancas et al science of the total environment xxx 2011 xxx xxx please cite this article as blancas fj et al how to use sustainability indicators for touri