Elsevier

Tourism Management

Volume 31, Issue 6, December 2010, Pages 871-880
Tourism Management

Sustainable performance index for tourism policy development

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.10.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Development of sustainable tourism policies could be a useful way of encouraging new forms of business, increasing employment and promoting the conservation of landscapes; in this regard, the application of the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas represents a referential methodology for local development and a possibility to involve local stakeholders in the definition of sustainability policy. In many cases, integrated sustainability indicators are developed within a participatory process; the present study represents an innovative attempt to evaluate sustainability holistically, by defining specific targets through the definition of indicators suitable to measure and evaluate the temporal evolution of development policies, mainstreaming sustainability to reduce adverse effects on the environment and promoting conservation of local and traditional values. Application of sustainability indicators to measure welfare and development at local scales is strategic to evaluate the short and long term effects of strategies developed through the European Charter participatory process.

Introduction

Sustainable tourism and ecotourism are widely recognized as means of enhancing local development as well as protecting natural environment and traditional and cultural heritage in international resolutions (Carta di Rimini, 2001, European Commission, 2000;European Commission, 2006, European Commission, 2007, WTO, 1995, WTO-UNEP, 2002, CA, Turismo, 1991) and scientific studies (Bimonte & Punzo, 2003; Dallari, 2002; Franch et al., 2007; Godde et al., 2000, Milne and Ateljevic, 2001; Neto, 2003; Wells, 1997). Moreover, the implementation of participatory processes of environmental governance is recognized as useful to address complex sustainable development issues and for planning local strategies of development (European Commission, 2001, van der Hove, 2006, UNECE, 1998, White et al., 2006), especially when it is integrated with a scientific analysis of the situation (Behringer et al., 2000, Stirling, 2006). The consultation of local stakeholders and their involvement in the definition of strategies for development, indeed, helps to highlight new perspectives about local situation and to assure that all the priorities of different actors and their opinion about possible measures of intervention are well-known and taken into account for the evaluation of scenarios and the definition of a strategy for local development (Logar, 2010, Stagl, 2006; Tosun, 2000).

The attempt to measure sustainability has to face some conceptual challenges: 1) the concept of sustainability is not univocally defined and efforts to measure it are difficult to implement (Bell and Morse, 1999, Butler, 1998, Hardi and Zdan, 1997); 2) sustainability is not a universal concept, it may be influenced by local environmental, social and economic contexts which may require more attention to be paid to specific aspects over others (Bell and Morse, 2003, Ko, 2005; Reed & Doughill, 2003; Twining-Ward & Butler, 2002); 3) legal compliance is not enough to define a sustainable model of development and, in many cases, is difficult to achieve. Furthermore, the challenge posed by the evaluation of a mid-long term process of local development is two-fold, seen in: 1) the need to find new methods for measuring local levels of development and quality of life, overcoming the evaluation of mere economic indicators such as GDP (Blackstock et al., 2006, Common and Stagl, 2005; Daly & Farley, 2004; Dymond, 1997) and 2) the need to evaluate temporal evolution of these policies, adopting instruments that enable decision makers to investigate the effects of the strategy adopted for local development and to compare the situation before and after its implementation (Connell, Page, & Bentley, 2009; Dovers, 2005, Grosskurth and Rotmans, 2005; OECD, 2009).

This paper describes the experience of the implementation of a participatory process of local development (i.e. the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas, 1995) in a marginal area of the Lombardy Region of Northern Italy as the starting point for the definition of new methodologies and indicators of sustainability in order to evaluate the actual impact of sustainable tourism development policies in marginal areas. Firstly, the paper describes the process of implementation of European Charter, as set by Europarc; secondly, it explores some theoretical implications deriving from the need to assess sustainability of local development processes and to define tools able to support the definition of policies (integrating objective, subjective and strategic analysis of the area and of its priorities) and to monitor their impacts through time; thirdly, a new index developed by authors for the evaluation of sustainability of local development policies in tourist destination (the Sustainable Performance Index - SPI) is described; finally, a case study is presented, in order to explain more in detail the methodology of the Sustainable Performance Index.

Section snippets

The European charter for sustainable tourism in protected areas

In 1995, Europarc (the European Federation of Protected Areas, that represents 500 members responsible for the management of more than 400 protected areas across the continent) took the initiative to set up the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas (1995) with a project funded by the EU's LIFE programme and led by the Fédération des Parcs Naturels Régionaux de France.

The European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas is an innovative planning instrument aimed

Methodology

The methodology presented in this paper was specifically developed and implemented by the authors to address and support the implementation of European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas in marginal areas of the Lombardy region, starting from the guidelines provided by Europarc.

The process of implementation of the European Charter is a local development management system focused on sustainable tourism. The process is inspired by the Deming cycle (Deming, 1994) within a

Area of study

The case study presented in this paper is the implementation of the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism by the Alpi Lepontine Mountain Community (Italian Mountain Communities are administrative clusters of municipalities in mountainous areas). Alpi Lepontine is an area of mid-high altitude in the Lombardy Region in northern Italy. It can be divided into two different sub-areas: the first one consists of municipalities near Lugano and Como lakes, with high tourist flows and high levels of

Results

The main results of the diagnosis of the territory, performed within the process of the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas, and further developed by the study about Tourism Carrying Capacity of Alpi Lepontine, are summarized in Table 1, which illustrates the results of an SWOT analysis of the local situation regarding natural and cultural heritage, socio-economic contexts and tourism. The main threats to the area relate to the impact of tourism on the natural

Discussion and conclusions

The methodology of European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas presented in this paper suggests that sustainable tourism projects may help to promote local sustainable development of mountain areas and that the Charter is a useful mechanism for involving stakeholders in the planning process. Indeed, the European Charter procedure meets the necessity of widening the concept of participation, from pure consultation to active involvement of local stakeholders, both in the planning

Acknowledgements

This research was undertaken within the project “Sovvenzione Globale INGENIO”, funded by European Social Fund, Italian Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and Lombardy Region.

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