Creating cross-destination synergies to set common approaches to measuring tourism sustainability: the Andalucía case

DESTINATION MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION

The Public Company for the Management of Tourism and Sports of Andalucía SA is a public sector company connected to the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sports of the Government of Andalucía. Its mandate is to promote and develop the tourism and sports industry in the region by conducting research and statistic, analyzing tourism markets, providing policy-making consulting , producing and distributing information, and managing facilities.

DESTINATION CONTEXT AND NEEDS

In 2016 a plan for Andalucía’s sustainable tourism was launched (General Plan for Sustainable Tourism of Andalusia, Horizon 2020) to reform the region’s sustainability strategy. Although it provides an important framework for the destinations’ activities, the sustainability measurement system proposed by the plan has proven very time and staff intensive to implement. In fact, it comprises more than 300 different indicators and indexes which result in a high level of complexity. Consequently, Andalucía needed to build a clear system of sustainability measures to assess the impact of tourism from different perspectives, that could have both:

1. Internal impact and be adapted to the specific context of the area, with the ability to provide meaningful real-time information to policymakers;
2. External validity, being aligned with international standards that can enable data sharing and comparison with other destinations.

STRATEGIC APPROACH

To obtain a complete yet easy-to-adopt system to measure sustainability and promptly inform policy makers, it was essential to design a process and solution that could provide effective results fast and,  at the same time,  maintain its operation over the long term. Therefore, the project was based on two strategic pillars:

• Existing data sources. Rather than plan new data collection efforts, the first goal was to use already collected data to generate valuable information;
• Internal resources and capabilities. Instead of relying on private external partners, the goal was to make the destination autonomous by developing its own knowledge and skills.

IMPLEMENTED PROCESS

Destination Andalucía and three other Spanish regions (Valencia, Navarra and Catalunya) decided to seek technical support from the European Union’s DG REFORM (Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support), an organization that provides support to member states and regions for the implementation of European reforms and guidelines. Assistance was requested with the main purpose of designing a shared methodology to measure the impact of tourism in compliance with international strategic goals and standards. The DG REFORM conceded a Technical Support program, sub-contracting it to OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).

Phase 1: destination context analysis. The regions involved participated in an assessment questionnaire drafted by OECD aimed at providing in depth understanding of current strategies, vision, specific needs, and expectations.

Phase 2: consultation with local stakeholders. After having assessed the general needs of the DMOs, the consultation process continued in order to involve local stakeholders for each region, including other subregional destinations, universities, the private tourism sectors and independent experts. Making these actors part of the process was crucial for early identification of related needs and issues at different levels.

Phase 3: draft methodology. After a thorough assessment of the context specificities, a draft methodology was designed through regular meetings and reviews. The drafting process is conducted through direct comparison between destinations, with the aim of finding common and representative sources and scalable methods to measure occurrences and provide impactful insights. Among the first methodologies agreed upon is, for example, the use of the Gini coefficient to calculate seasonality at the sub-regional level. The result of this phase was a list of core and supplementary indicators with detail of their data sources, metrics and calculation formulas.

Phase 4: pilot implementation. Each region tested the implementation of the identified indicators and, according to the pilots’ results, the methodology was progressively refined. Among the first needs that emerged was the adoption of a framework to collect and analyze employment data, for instance to provide information about the gender pay gap in the tourism sectors.

Phase 5: evaluation. After the piloting implementation, an evaluation assessment of the methodology was conducted by OECD and the involved regions to identify the challenges encountered by the regions (such as data limitations) and the indicators’ relevance in capturing policy issues.

The design process lasted a total of two years, from October 2022 and culminating in 2024 with a dissemination event in Marbella (October 11th 2024)  to share best practices .

MAIN BENEFITS

• Adaptability and flexibility. As a result of the collaborative effort of destinations varying in territorial size (e.g., larger regions like Catalonia versus smaller regions like Navarre) and geographical characteristics (coastal regions such as Andalusia, Catalonia, and Valencia versus non-coastal regions like Navarre), the resulting framework offers the advantage of adaptability and replicability in diverse contexts.
• Comparability. Setting standards is essential to make destination comparison and benchmarking possible, as well as to keep track of changes and progresses over time. Prioritizing comparability also helped in identifying gaps in statistical operations due to lack of representative data (for example, for smaller regions).
• Economic sustainability. Leveraging on data already collected and made available from different sources, both public and private, it is possible to contain expenses and to be financially sustainable in the long run. Adopted sources include, among others: national and regional statistics offices, UNESCO World Heritage, OpenCycleMap, European Alternative Fuels Observatory and EUROPARC.
• Skills development and collaboration. The whole process constitutes a best practice on how destinations can benefit from high-level support from the European and international institutions to develop internal skills.

MAIN CHALLENGES

• Agreement and decision making. Differences between destination contexts make it difficult to find methods that fit all unique features along all stages of the information generation process (data collection, verification, aggregation, analysis and visualization).
• Data availability. Regarding some environmental and social factors, the design of effective indicators is hampered by the unavailability of data from official sources. Temporary solutions include direct collection (e.g. through surveys), or partnerships with private companies, but both are resource intensive. Long-term advocacy with institutions will be fundamental to improve the functioning of the whole system.  

FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Designing and implementing common standards to assess tourism sustainability is a shared and urgent need across destinations and the tourism industry. After the successful TSI Spain project Andalusia remains committed to working on the agreement for a common framework for tourism sustainability measurement. This includes ongoing collaboration with UN Tourism and the development of the EU Competence Center (D3HUB) to support data management in tourism destinations.