Study on the feasibility of a European tourism indicator system for sustainable management at destination level
Dates
Start date: 19 January 2012
End date: 22 February 2013
Objectives
The aim of this study is to provide tourism destination stakeholders and Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) across Europe with a simple, ready to use system of indicators with which they can easily assess and monitor the sustainability of their tourism destinations.
The European Tourism Indicator System is a key element of the work of the European Commission to promote an internationally competitive industry and to enhance the sustainability of destinations across Europe. Previous projects that focused on this issue included working with the Commission's Tourism Sustainability Group (TSG) of experts on the development of a core set of indicators, and testing this core set of indicators in selected EDEN and NECSTouR destinations.
While considerable work has gone in to the development of the TSG indicators and their initial piloting phase, there is no widely accepted process and methodology for the sustainable management of destinations using the indicators. The task of the project team is to develop an inclusive, user-friendly methodology for using indicators in order to enhance the management of tourism destinations across Europe.
The project comprises of five principle task areas:
- Review of international sustainable tourism indicator systems
- Review of the results of NECSTouR and EDEN destination reports
- Refinement of TSG core set of indicators and development of a destination guidance toolkit
- Testing of the indicators and toolkit in number of pilot destinations across Europe
- Adjustments to indicator set and toolkit, and recommendations shared in a regional conference in February 2013
Funding
EU DG Enterprise & Industry
Collaborations
Sustainable Travel International: a global non-profit organisation that specialises in market-driven sustainable tourism and destination stewardship solutions.
The INTASAVE Partnership: a not-for-profit company that has experience in implementing sustainable tourism indicators in over 40 destinations worldwide.