Abstracts for Session 26

Methods measuring sustainability effects of tourism development for benefit of local communities and rural areas.

Title: Planning for a more sustainable tourism? A Pan Nordic analysis of Regional Tourism Strategies for rural areas

Authors: Ágúst Bogason, Rikke Brandt Broegaard, and Anna Karlsdóttir

Affiliation: Nordregio

Sustainability is highlighted as a central issue in the national tourism policies of the Nordic countries and Tourism Development Plans (TDPs) provide an interesting source for analysing the degree to which sustainability concerns are integrated into the tourism sector at a sub-national level. This paper explores visions and goals for sustainable tourism development through a content analysis of 110 rural municipal, sub-regional and regional tourism plans from the Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland. The TDP content-mapping is especially interesting, since these documents are formulated at the lowest administrative level(s) by tourism-related actors or planners at municipal, sub-regional and/or regional level. Although the majority of the TDPs mention sustainability in tourism development, the degree of which they operationalise the concept and integrate it into societal issues varies greatly. To better map the different operationalisation of sustainability in the regional TDPs, a typology for the extent to which—and whether—sustainability concerns were treated in the tourism strategies was created. Through matrix queries some patterns were identified that e.g., show that addressing negative experiences of tourism in a TDP influences how sustainability concerns are treated. An association is also observable between the process through which the TDP has been developed and the way sustainability concerns are treated. The paper therefore contributes to knowledge on how to better facilitate a development process of sustainable regional and local tourism strategies, where tourism development is intended to serve the local community and contribute to regional development.

Title: Developing a Sustainable Tourism Indicator system for rural tourism destinations in Denmark

Authors: Jesper Manniche, Rikke Brandt Broegaard, Jonathan Lindahl and Anne Thomas

Affiliation: Centre for Regional and Tourism Research (CRT)

While tourism is an increasingly important element in regional development strategies, especially in rural areas, the measurement of tourism impacts has rarely been measured systematically beyond the economic aspects provided by (regional) tourism satellite accounts. The growing attention of social and environmental impacts of tourism has accentuated the need for transitions of the sector towards more sustainability, ideally by contributing positively to the destinations while reducing the negative environmental footprint of activities. In response to this, numerous Sustainable Tourism Indicator systems (STI) have been elaborated worldwide.  

In an ongoing project funded by the Danish Ministry of the Interior and Housing, researchers and DMO representatives collaborate to develop a STI system, encompassing economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability, taking its point of departure in Danish rural and coastal destinations, to support their strategic efforts of creating, operating, and communicating more sustainable forms of tourism. 

This paper presents the steps taken to develop a rural oriented STI, and the key dilemmas faced by participants. This involves the number of indicators and the related level of details of the STI system, whether indicators should be tailored to (individual) destination needs or comparable between destinations at a national level; and related to this, the data sources: Should they be based on nationally available registry or survey data or draw on data sources that may be available at local level, but not equally so for all destinations? 

An empirical example of the STI system is presented in a subsequent paper.

Title: The Impacts of Tourism on Sustainable Development in Rural Destinations: The Case of Bornholm

Author: Jonathan Lindahl

Affiliation: Centre for Regional and Tourism Research (CRT)

The local communities are influenced both positively and negatively by tourism. For instance, tourism has for long time been seen as a means for economic development, especially in rural areas. Therefore, there has been a great focus on measuring the economic effects of tourism, for instance using tourism satellite accounts. However, tourism is more than its positive impacts on the economic development. Tourism also has social and environmental impacts. These effects can both be positive (for instance, through social inclusion of citizens on the edge of the labour market) or negative (for instance, putting pressure on the use of natural resources). Therefore, there is a need to extend with social and environmental impacts of the tourism to get a broader sense of tourism impact in rural destinations. The European Travel Commission (ETC) has already selected and prioritizes 13 sustainable indicators, that can be used to compare between countries, cities, and destinations. This paper argues that to better reflect tourism impacts from a rural perspective, there is a need for a small extension and modification of the 13 ETC sustainable indicators. Consequently, it presents such an extended and modified proposal for sustainable indicators and shows their application in an analysis of data for the Danish island Bornholm. The method can be applied to other rural destinations, giving an estimate of key economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism on the destination.