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Concepts and Tools for Comprehensive
Sustainability Assessments for Tourism
Destinations: A Comparative Review
Karin Schianetz
Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Queensland,
Australia
Lydia Kavanagh
Advanced Wastewater Management Centre, University of Queensland,
Australia
David Lockington
Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Queensland,
Australia
This paper reviews a wide range of tools for comprehensive sustainability assessments
at whole tourism destinations, covering sociocultural, economic and environmental
issues. It considers their strengths, weaknesses and site-specific applicability. It is in-
tended to facilitate their selection (and combination where necessary). Tools covered
include Sustainability Indicators, Environmental Impact Assessment, Life Cycle As-
sessment, Environmental Audits, Ecological Footprints, Multi-Criteria Analysis and
Adaptive Environmental Assessment. Guidelines for evaluating their suitability for
specific sites and situations are given as well as examples of their use.
doi: 10.2167/jost659.0
Keywords: assessment tools, sustainability, tourism destinations
Introduction
Tourism literature is replete with accounts of adverse social, cultural and
environmental impacts, and irreversible effects, caused by tourism development
and the overbuilding of popular tourism destinations. The list of observed
impacts ranges from localised inflation, potential increases in crime, economic
exploitation of local populations to social dislocation, destruction of heritage
and severe environmental damage (Hall & Page, 2002; Mason, 2003). These
impacts often outweigh the value of tourism to the local community (UNEP,
2003; Worboys & de Lacy, 2003).
This is especially true in ecologically fragile areas such as coastal zones
where beachfront hotels can contribute to beach erosion, deterioration of wa-
ter quality, flooding and the disappearance of natural wetlands (Mastny, 2002).
0966-9582/07/04 369-21 $20.00/0 C
2007 K. Schianetz et al.
JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM Vol. 15, No. 4, 2007
369
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Motivated by these and similar examples, international organisations like the
World Tourism Organization (WTO), the World Travel and Tourism Council
(WTTC), UNEP, UNESCO and the World Watch Institute (WWI) promote sus-
tainable tourism practices (Epler Wood, 2002; UNEP, 2003; WTO, 2000). This
has resulted in the development of many different concepts and tools for the
assessment of situations and the implementation of sustainable tourism, each
addressing different issues, levels, geographic and time scales and different
stages of development. Some have been designed, for instance, to minimise re-
source demand and waste generation from single tourism enterprises and hotels
(Ding & Pigram, 1995). Others aim to maintain the attractiveness of particular
tourism sites, such as the Blue Flag ecolabelling system (Hamele, 2002) or look at
possible environmental impacts of new tourism developments such as airports
and marinas, as in the case of environmental impact assessment (Warnken &
Buckley, 1998).
In order to achieve sustainable tourism on a destination level rather than
on project or business levels, these concepts and tools need to be combined
and integrated (BEQUEST, 2001; Lee, 2001) as they cover different areas and
contribute to different aspects of achieving sustainable development at desti-
nations. Choosing appropriately integrated tools is important for developers,
planners and regulators of tourism resorts and new destinations, because com-
prehensive assessment of possible impacts on environment and community of
planned developments is required in order to avoid trade-offs and transferences
of problems from one area to the other.
This article is intended to assist the selection and implementation of assess-
ment tools by critically analysing their potential, limitations and effectiveness
for the assessment of whole tourism destinations. The evaluation of the tools
takes into account the differences and distinctiveness of tourism developments
in comparison to process-based industries or regular urban development. Ex-
amples of the application of the tools at tourism destinations are given. A frame-
work to allow site- and situation-specific tool selection is suggested.
Background
Sustainability in tourism destinations
The implementation of triple bottom-line sustainability at a destination or
regional level is particularly significant for sustainable tourism (Lee, 2001); im-
portant sustainability issues are beyond the scope and responsibility of private
organisations and enterprises. Even if, for example, all hotels in a region min-
imise their waste generation and dispose of remaining wastes ’properly’, it does
not necessarily ensure sustainable waste management at the destination. For
this, planning, by local or regional authorities, which considers the interaction
between impacts is necessary. Hence Koeman et al. (2002) emphasise that ‘travel
and tourism destinations are an appropriate scale for considering sustainable tourism
management, planning and development’ and therefore the following evaluation of
tools is designed for the comprehensive assessment of whole tourism destina-
tions.
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
371
Tourism destinations can range in scale from whole countries and states to re-
sorts and small tourism sites. In the context of this review, the chosen scale needs
to be meaningful and practical for the sustainable management and assessment
of tourism and its development. Setting boundaries too large, for instance, at
country or state level, could be problematic because issues are too diverse and
complex (Lee, 2001), whereas boundaries that are too narrow (e.g. resorts, hotels,
individual tourism sites) do not allow the inclusion of all aspects of, for instance,
the necessary engineering infrastructure and the comprehensive analysis of all
impacts. Hence, a suitable scale for comprehensive sustainability assessment
could be a destination under a local authority or municipality, through which
regional planning, management and regulation are carried out.
Tourism destination assessment
Currently, there exists a wide range of tools and approaches that address spe-
cific aspects of sustainable tourism and are used with varying objectives and
by different stakeholders. The international network Building Environmental
Quality Evaluation For Sustainability (BEQUEST), funded by the European
Commission (EC), has started to establish a directory of tools used to assess
the sustainability of urban development (BEQUEST, 2001; Deakin et al., 2001). It
aims to provide a framework for a common understanding of sustainable urban
development (SUD) by maintaining a list of sustainability assessment tools by
category. The directory currently contains 66 assessment methods (Deakin et al.,
2001), with still more to be included, and is organised alphabetically as it proved
difficult to define universal classification categories.
The BEQUEST directory and framework is helpful in SUD. Planners of tourism
destinations, however, have to take into account three main particularities
of tourism destinations as distinct from most process-based industries. First,
tourism destinations are often located in or close to ecologically fragile or cultur-
ally sensitive areas, which have low resilience to human impacts (Mieczkowski,
1995). Pollutants released, or stress induced, in such areas will cause consid-
erably more damage to the environment than if emitted in already developed
areas. The implication of this is that assessments must consider site-specific im-
pacts which may not be necessary for other industries or urban developments
located in already highly developed or less sensitive regions.
Second, tourism destinations have been characterised as very dynamic (Butler,
1980; Casagrandi & Rinaldi, 2002) and tourism development as inherently unsta-
ble (Farrell & Twining Ward, 2004; McKercher, 1999) and unpredictable (Nelson,
1999). Environmental loads, such as waste generation and water consumption,
vary considerably in time due to rapidly changing visitor numbers (e.g. during
holidays and weekends) and weather. Furthermore, many tourism destinations
experience unexpectedly rapid evolution and decline patterns which can en-
danger social and economic as well as environmental resources. Assessments
should, therefore, include recognition of the dynamics of the tourism industry.
Finally, tourism has been described as a ’complex activity or set of activities’
(Nelson, 1999: 7) and an inherently complex system (Farrell & Twining-Ward,
2004; McKercher, 1999). Indeed, tourism destinations are not centrally organised
like many process-based industries and they are also more complex than pure
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
urban settlements that have a uniform stakeholder mix. Tourism destinations
are a conglomerate of many small independent, interacting businesses which
are also strongly connected and interdependent. Therefore, suitable assessment
tools should adopt a ’whole systems approach’ (Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004;
Hall, 2000). They should be able to evaluate cause – effect relationships and
feedback loops in order to detect potential problems emerging from the interac-
tion and connections between different organisations and parts of the tourism
destination. They should also be able to analyse cumulative impacts as the im-
pacts of small tourism businesses, operations and activities may be significant
only when evaluated together.
This leads to the requirement that assessment tools must be capable of dealing
with large numbers of parameters, data and relations as well as competing
objectives of different stakeholder groups.
Concept versus assessment tool
In order to facilitate the development of an integrative framework for assess-
ment tool selection, it is important to distinguish between a concept and an
assessment tool in the present context.
Aconcept is an idea of how to achieve sustainability. An example of a concept
is ’cleaner production’, which is viewed as a preventive environmental strategy
(UNEP, 2001) or a proactive, anticipative ’beginning-of-the-pipe’ philosophy
(Baas et al., 1992). Cleaner production strategies define the goal of pollution pre-
vention and minimisation and lead to the development of objectives, but they
do not evaluate the necessity of environmental improvement, nor do they quan-
tify improvements gained by the implementation. For this, assessment tools are
needed. An assessment tool is something that typically consists of a systematic
step-by-step assessment procedure and/or a computational algorithm that is
used to implement a concept. Important objectives of tools for sustainability
assessment are to define the areas where corrective actions would be neces-
sary and to evaluate if the chosen mitigation measures will lead to the desired
improvement of the situation or object of study.
The concept constructs the basis for the development of objectives, strategies
and measures to improve sustainability, while assessment tools are necessary
to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures. As such the tool is part of a
closed-loop system providing feedback information for the implementation of
the concept (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 Tools as feedback control for sustainability concepts
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
373
In order to achieve sustainability on a destination level, it has been shown
that it is necessary to integrate a range of sustainability concepts such as cleaner
production, environmental management and tourism ecolabelling (Lee, 2001).
Lee’s paper (2001) does not include the evaluation of tools that are needed to
support these various concepts. This, however, is of major importance; concepts
can only be implemented efficiently if there are appropriate tools available
to support these concepts. This paper therefore concentrates on the review of
tools for sustainability assessment and gives only a brief overview of the main
concepts for implementing sustainable tourism destinations. Table 1 summarises
the definitions, principal objectives and the areas of application of important
concepts.
Table 2 shows the connections between the concepts summarised in Table 1
and the tools that have been used or promoted to assess the sustainability
of tourism destinations. Some concepts, such as tourism ecolabelling are to
date mainly supported by sustainability indictors and environmental auditing
(Hamele, 2002). Other tools (e.g. life cycle assessment) have been promoted as
a component of tourism ecolabelling (Font & Buckley, 2001), but are not yet
utilised.
Each of the tools in Table 2 provides different information with respect to the
assessment of the sustainability of tourism destinations. This information can
be broadly grouped into the following categories:
(1) assessment of the environmental, social, cultural and economic implications
of tourism development projects, tourism enterprises and operations at local,
regional and national levels;
(2) measurements of progress in achieving sustainable development at a local
level;
(3) analysis of national and international implications of the whole tourism
industry;
(4) comparison of different design options for new sustainable tourism products
at all levels; and
(5) evaluation of the cumulative impacts of tourism development at a regional
level.
A detailed description of the tools and their potential advantages and limita-
tions in supporting the concepts in the contexts of sustainable tourism destina-
tions is provided in the following section.
Tool Description and Analysis
Sustainability indicators (SI)
Indicators have been promoted as useful, reliable and easily comprehensible
assessment and communication tools for decisionmakers (OECD, 2003; WTO,
2004). Since the early 1990s, the WTO has pioneered the development and ap-
plication of SI for tourism and destinations, and advocates the use of SI as
a‘fundamental part of overall destination planning and management, and an integral
element in efforts to promote sustainable development for the tourism sector at all scales.’
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Table 1 Concepts for achieving sustainable tourism destinations
Concepts Definition Principal objective Tourism industry
application
Ecotourism Ecologically sustainable
tourism with a primary
focus on experiencing
natural areas that foster
environmental and
cultural understanding,
appreciation and
conservation (Ecotourism
Australia, 2003)
Offer and/or
promote ‘green’
alternatives to
environmentally
concerned
tourists; build
environmental
awareness
Internationally
widely used and
promoted (Honey,
1999), but also
criticised as
difficult to apply
(Blamey, 1997) and
incorrectly used as
a marketing tool
Cleaner
production
Preventative strategy
which promotes
eliminating waste before
it is created to
systematically reduce
overall pollution
generation and improve
efficiencies of resource
use (UNEP, 2001)
Pollution
prevention and
control
Slow and
restricted
implementation
(Kavanagh, 1999)
Environmental
management
Management and control
of the environment and
natural resources systems
in such a way so as to
ensure the sustainability
of development efforts
over a long-term basis
Integration of
environmental
objectives into
socioeconomic
policy and
planning (Steger,
1988)
Adopted by some
tourism agencies
(e.g. TUI, BA
Holidays) and by
international
tourism
organisations such
as WTTC and
WTO
Ecolabelling Voluntary,
multiple-criteria-based,
third party programme
that awards a license
which authorises the use
of environmental labels
on products indicating
overall environmental
preferability of a product
based on life cycle
considerations (ISO
14020:1998)
Promote
sustainable
consumption
patterns by
informing the
consumer about
level of
environmental
performance of a
product or service
(Hale, 1996)
Widely adopted as
a marketing tool.
Has had a range of
applications from
single villages to
worldwide
systems (Buckley,
2002)
Tourism carry-
ing capacity
Maximum number of
tourists that can visit a
single site without
causing destructive
physical, biological,
economic or sociocultural
effects on environment,
or an unacceptable
deterioration in tourists’
satisfaction (WTO, 1983)
Prevention of
major damage
caused by
overpopulation
Raised awareness
(Coccossis et al.,
2001), but difficult
to assess
scientifically
(Buckley, 1999)
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
375
Table 2 Matrix of assessment tools and concepts for sustainability implementation
Concepts
Tourism
Cleaner Environmental carrying
Tools Ecotourism production management Ecolabelling capacity
Sustainability √√ √√ √√ √√ √√
Indicators (SI)
Environmental √√√√ √√√
Impact
Assessment (EIA)
Life Cycle √√√√√ √–
Assessment (LCA)
Environmental √√ √√ √√ √√ √√
Auditing (EA)
Ecological √√√√√ ––
Footprint (EF)
Multi-Criteria – √√ √√ ––
Analysis (MCA)
Adaptive √√√√ √√√
Environmental
Assessment (AEA)
Notes: √√ : Tool is currently used to support the concept for sustainability assessment in tourism.
√: Tool has been used in other industries and has been promoted by tourism researchers to support
the concept, but has not yet been used for tourism.
–: Tool is not designed for and cannot be used to support the concept.
(WTO, 2004: 8). There are different types of SI for the assessment of tourism des-
tinations, each with different roles and utility (see Table 3).
SI is the most broadly used and advocated tool to assess the sustainability of
tourism destinations (Twining-Ward & Butler, 2002; WTO, 2004) for several rea-
sons. One of the most important is that the process of establishing indicator sets
is –in comparison to the other assessment tools described later –relatively clear
and simple at the many levels of a tourism destination. The tourism ecolabelling
scheme Green Globe, for example, uses performance indicators to benchmark
hotels, tourism enterprises, tourist sites and destinations (Green Globe, 2001,
2002).
The establishment of SI sets is very flexible through adaptation of the chosen
set of indicators, thus allowing the improvement of databases and information
by adding more suitable or by replacing outdated indicators. Both quantitative
and qualitative information can be used for SI (WTO, 2004). This is particularly
important for aspects where quantitative data are not or not yet available, or
where performance indicators are linked to qualitative objectives (OECD, 2003),
such as visitor satisfaction or prevention of overcrowding on walking tracks.
Furthermore, quantitative SI can reduce large quantities of physical and social
science data into manageable information as they can be easily aggregated,
added up and compared.
The WTO published, in 2004, a comprehensive guidebook for the establish-
ment of SI for tourism destinations (WTO, 2004). The WTO acknowledges, based
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Table 3 Types of sustainability indicators for tourism destinations
Indicator type Indicator measures Examples References
Pressure or
stress indicator
Pressures caused by
human activities that affect
environment, culture and
economy
Water shortages or
crime indices
OECD, 2003;
UN, 2001
State indicator Current state of the
industry
Number of local
people employed by
the tourism industry
OECD, 2003
Response
indicator
The response of society
and management efforts to
solve problems identified
by other indicators (e.g.
stress, pressure and state)
Introduction of
taxes, cleanup costs
for coastal
contamination
OECD, 2003
Impact
indicator
Impacts on the social and
economic functions of the
tourism destination
Loss of biodiversity,
changes of income
levels of local
communities
EEA, 1999
Performance The performance (distance
to target) of the industry
Waste generated/
waste target
EEA, 1999
Efficiency The efficiency of human
activities to resolve
identified problems
(comparison of gain and
expenditure)
Energy-efficiency of
cars, buildings
EEA, 1999
Early warning
indicator
Observable changes that
couldaffectthe
sustainability of the
industry
Decline in tourists
who intend to return
WTO, 2004
on the vast number of different examples presented in the guidebook, that
tourism destinations differ considerably from each other and that a good indi-
cator set for one tourism destination is not necessarily appropriate for another.
The value of the SI set is determined by the degree to which it can provide infor-
mation to clarify issues and to measure responses. Therefore, the WTO (2004)
and tourism researchers (Miller, 2001; Twining-Ward & Butler, 2002) recommend
that SI systems be developed in a participatory process unique to the destina-
tion, in order to identify tourism assets and risks, and select priority issues as
well as define objectives.
Environmental impact assessment (EIA)
The EIA is, throughout the world, one of the most popular tools for assess-
ing the environmental impacts of new or planned projects. It originated as a
mandatory regulatory procedure in the early 1970s in the USA and is used to
investigate proposed changes and impacts to the environment at a specific site
(Erickson, 1994; Harvey, 1998; Thomas, 2001). Thus EIA is used mainly as a
pre-project approval decisionmaking tool and is usually a requirement to get a
licence to construct and/or operate a particular plant.
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
377
EIA concentrates on the assessment of site-specific environmental impacts,
and is a relatively flexible and objective-oriented tool. The EIA evaluation meth-
ods used are defined and adapted for specific cases. EIA methods can address
social, cultural and economic aspects, and range from ad hoc methods, check-
lists, matrices and overlays to systems diagrams, networks, quantitative or index
methods and mathematical models (Thomas, 2001).
In tourism, EIAs are generally used for specific projects, such as marinas,
airports and new eco-resorts, and not for the assessment of whole tourism
destinations. Between 1979 and 1993, a total of 175 tourism developments in
Australia were subject to EIA (Warnken & Buckley, 1998). However, Warnken
and Buckley found that the scientific quality of the conducted assessments was
generally low and that the impact predictions were vague and unquantified.
The observed difficulties of EIA are inherent in procedures that are mainly
designed and performed as ’front-end’ assessments, examining a project be-
fore it begins and therefore lacking adequate monitoring and feedback loops
for re-evaluation and remedial measures (Warnken & Buckley, 1998). Since the
EIA may not include final design data, an inefficient and costly scattergun ap-
proach to data collection and assessment is often used to cover all eventualities
(Andersen, 1997).
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
LCA is a decision-support tool for assessing the environmental performance
of a product, process or activity from ’cradle to grave’ (i.e. from extraction of raw
materials to final disposal) (ISO 14040, 1997). The LCA process is, in comparison
to SI, quite complex because it strives to include all possible input and output
data over the whole life cycle of a product system. While SI systems often select
indicators that are easily measurable and believed to be relevant, the inventory
assessment of the LCA is kept as comprehensive as possible and therefore LCA
minimises the risk of overlooking important aspects.
One of the strengths of LCA is that it detects and therefore avoids major trade-
offs from one medium to the other and from one production stage to the other,
thereby reducing pressures without creating new ones or exacerbating others.
Another advantage of LCA is that it can cumulatively assess all impacts within
a system boundary and these impacts can include indirect impacts caused by
processes such as food production, accommodation and road construction or
business services.
LCA of the tourism sector has been promoted by tourism researchers (Font
& Buckley, 2001; Johnson, 2002) and organisations (Office of National Tourism,
2005), but it has rarely been undertaken. Recently, LCA was used to assess the
indirect environmental impacts of the tourism sector in New Zealand (Patterson
& McDonald, 2004). The study showed the value of LCA for the decision-
making process, as it helps to avoid the transference of environmental impacts
in time and location. This can occur if indirect impacts caused by tourism supply
industries, such as agriculture, building, fisheries and transport agencies, are
omitted.
As LCA requires data generation and processing, various software programs
and databases have been developed to facilitate and normalise the assessment
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
process. Whilst this has streamlined LCA, it has been found that where data has
not been previously assembled, data collection can be extremely time consuming
and costly.
The main focus of LCA has traditionally been global impacts, such as global
warming, ecotoxicity and ozone layer depletion (Owens, 1998). There have been
some efforts to include regional and local effects (M¨
uller-Wenk, 1999), which are,
however, relatively generic and not suitable for sensitive ecosystems.
LCA has been developed for the assessment of environmental impacts and
normally does not consider social and economic impacts. Although attention has
been given to the other dimensions of sustainability, it is still considered outside
of the scope of LCA (Rebitzer & Seuring, 2003; Udo de Haes et al., 2004). The
difficulty in including qualitative data in LCA is a drawback for the assessment
of tourism destinations in ecologically sensitive areas as important impacts, such
as disturbance of wildlife, erosion, over-harvesting and introduction of invasive
species, are difficult to quantify.
Environmental auditing (EA)
EA is an integral part of the environmental management process (Council
Regulation [EEC] No. 1936/93, 1993) and is usually undertaken by, or applied
to, facilities that are already in operation (EEC, 1993). EA critically examines the
operations on a site and, if necessary, identifies areas for improvement to assist
the management to meet requirements. Hence, the effectiveness of EA as an
environmental assessment tool largely depends on the professional competence
of the auditing team and the availability of environmental data.
EA is a very flexible tool. It can be adapted to different tourism operations,
such as organisations, enterprises, development projects and tourism destina-
tions, independently of their scale. It can be combined easily with other assess-
ment tools, such as SI, LCA and EIA. Despite its historical focus on environ-
mental issues, social and economical aspects can be easily included in the EA
process. In contrast to EIA, EA is applied periodically as a monitoring tool,
which is especially important for organisations and tourism destinations that
are constantly and rapidly developing or changing. EA concentrates on per-
formance measurements and effects caused at the assessed site, therefore it is
primarily site-specific, and important for the assessment of local impacts.
EA has been applied to tourism to a lesser degree than to process-based indus-
tries. There is potential to apply EA to the tourism industry to monitor the extent
to which a tourist operation or development satisfies environmental standards
or indicators (Ding & Pigram, 1995) as per many tourism ecolabelling schemes
such as Green Globe (Green Globe, 2001), and NEAP (Chester & Crabtree, 2002).
Generally, tourism researchers emphasise the value of EA to improve the en-
vironmental performance of tourism companies (Goodall, 1995) and recreation
enterprises (Tribe et al., 2000).
Ecological footprint (EF)
The Ecological Footprint (EF) is defined by Wackernagel and Rees (1996: 6) as
an ‘estimate of resource consumption and waste assimilation requirements for a
defined human population or economy in terms of a corresponding productive
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
379
land area’. EF analysis builds on the concept of carrying capacity (Chambers
et al., 2000), referring to the population that a given ecology can support.
EF analysis is a simple and transparent methodology. Its strength is that it
allows easy comparisons of environmental performance between organisations
of different scale, ranging from single enterprises to cities and even whole coun-
tries. It can be used to generate initial comparisons between tourism destinations
on a land use and energy requirement basis and thus encourage more productive
communication by providing a common starting point for debate.
The WWF-UK (2002) promotes EF as ‘a practical tool for responsible tourism’that
enables operators to calculate the environmental impact that a holiday product
has on the environment in terms of resources used. Case studies undertaken by
the WWF-UK in Majorca and Cyprus show that the components with the largest
footprint are air travel, waste generation, food consumption and hotel energy.
EF analysis of tourism in the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean undertaken
by G¨
ossling et al. (2002) revealed that the largest factor of EF resulted from air
travel to and from the destination, accounting for more than 97% of the energy
footprint.
Multi-criteria analysis (MCA)
MCA is another decision-support tool that has been used in the context of
regional sustainability assessment (Nijkamp & Veeker, 2000). It has mostly been
applied to environmental planning and project appraisal (Pohekar & Ramachan-
dran, 2003), and to address conflicting objectives between stakeholders over the
use of scarce natural resources (Nijkamp et al., 1990).
MCA techniques allow comparison of alternatives, such as different design
options or policy interventions, using a set of criteria and a method for ranking
the alternatives based on how well they satisfy the criteria (Resource Assess-
ment Commission, 1992). In principle, MCA goes beyond SI as it provides a
method of evaluating data and indicators by using different procedures of data
standardisation, ranking and weighting.
Important advantages of MCA in comparison to other methods are first, that
a large number of data, relationships and objectives can be considered (Delft &
Nijkamp, 1977), secondly, that data need not be converted to the same unit (e.g.
dollars, kg or m2), and finally, that it can use both quantitative and qualitative
evaluation criteria (e.g. yes/no, plus and minus, ordinal ranking).
Zografos and Oglethorpe (2004) applied MCA in Napo/Ecuador to com-
pare sociocultural, economic and environmental impacts of ecotourism with
other economic activities of the region. Scordillis (2004) used the approach in
the framework of a case study to compare different solid waste management
systems for the tourism destination Corfu.
A key feature of MCA is its emphasis on the judgement of the decisionmaking
team in establishing objectives and criteria, estimating relative importance and
evaluating the contribution of each option to each performance criterion (Re-
source Assessment Commission, 1992). As such, MCA depends highly on the
expertise of the assessment team, and depending on the object of the MCA, ex-
perts from different scientific fields will be required. As this can be costly, MCA
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
is usually undertaken as a front end assessment and hence cannot consider
unpredicted changes.
Adaptive environmental assessment (AEA)
AEA was developed in response to a number of perceived weaknesses of site-
specific environmental impact assessments such as EIA. It is based upon the
seminal work of Holling (1978) who advocated environmental assessment ap-
proaches designed to take account of the continual uncertainty that is inherent
in all natural systems. AEA uses small collaborative workshops of scientists,
decisionmakers and computer modelling experts to construct a simulation
model of the economic, social and/or environmental system likely to be
affected by a development. Periodic workshops and the refinement of the model
with newly available data initiates a learning cycle that promotes systems un-
derstanding and facilitates the exploration of management scenarios (Van den
Belt, 2004).
AEA has the potential to assess the sustainability aspects of tourism desti-
nations that underlie dynamic environmental, social or market changes and
that cannot be analysed with other tools, such as LCA due to complex relation-
ships. Walker et al. (1999) pointed out that model development also leads to
an improved understanding of cumulative environmental impacts, such as the
ongoing loss of agricultural land for tourism development and the decreasing
capacity of landfills.
The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO)
have developed, in collaboration with the Douglas Shire Council in Northern
Queensland and the tourism industry, an innovative framework for investigat-
ing the social, economic and environmental outcomes of tourism development
(Walker et al., 1999). The core element of the framework is a simulation tool called
‘Tourism Futures Simulator ’ (TFS), which is based on AEA tools and procedures.
Walker et al. (1999: 67) describe the TFS as a ‘powerful tool to help explore the
complexities of the tourism industry and its interactions with the economy, the
environment and local communities’. The simulation model, however, can be-
come very complex due to the scale of interrelationships and interdependencies
of the various processes of a tourism destination (Walker et al., 1999). Therefore,
models are usually generic and allow only relatively simple predictions, such
as the increase in rubbish, traffic and electricity demand caused by rising tourist
numbers.
So far, there have been only a few applications of AEA to the assessment of
large-scale developments and therefore the wider applicability of AEA is still to
be evaluated (Bisset & Tomlinson, 2000).
Which Tool for What Purpose
It can be concluded from the previous section that no single tool addresses
all of the environmental, social and economic issues at all levels and therefore
a combination of different assessment tools may be required to answer specific
questions pertinent to a project. This section is therefore intended to provide a
framework for tool selection and effective integration. The following categories
have been developed to aid the decisionmaking process and these tie in with
Table 4 which lists the tools via selection matrix of these categories.
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
381
Table 4 Guide to tool selection for sustainability assessment of tourism destinations
Assessment tools
Selection guidelines SI LCA EA EF MCA EIA AEA
Time Retrospective √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √ ––
perspective Prospective √√√–√ √√√ √√√ √√√
Spatial Global √√√ √√√ –√√√ √ ––
focus assessment
Site-specific √ √ √√√ –√√√ √√√ √√√
Focus for Technosphere √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √ √
change Ecosphere √√√√√√√√√√√
Effects Environmental √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√
considered aspects
Economic aspects √√√ √ √ –√√ √ √√√
Social aspects √√√ –√√ –√√ √ √√
Cumulative √√√ √√ –√√√ √ √ √√√
impacts
Dynamic – – – – – √ √√√
impacts
Interrelationships – – √–√ √ √√√
(1) Time perspective – are you monitoring progress or predicting
consequence?
Decisionmaking tools are used either to investigate where change is needed
(retrospective tools) or to evaluate the consequences of a proposed change
(prospective tools).
Retrospective tools are designed to monitor ongoing progress. A typical ret-
rospective tool for the assessment of tourism destinations is EA whose inherent
strength is the assessment of compliance with legal requirements, standards
and goals. Tourism ecolabelling schemes introduced EA to monitor compliance
with their standards. However, as discussed, EA does not predict potential im-
pacts well, despite its promotion for this purpose by some tourism researchers
(Diamantis, 1999). To counteract this weakness and to be able to compare for-
mulated alternatives, EA has to be integrated with prospective tools (e.g. EIA
and MCA).
On the whole, LCA have been used in the tourism sector retrospectively;
Patterson and McDonald (2004) used them in this way for a tourism sector
study in New Zealand. As shown by other industries, LCA has the potential
to compare formulated alternatives and thus could also be used prospectively.
This also applies to SI, as demonstrated by Green Globe who are using SI for
the benchmarking of tourism precincts in the planning stage (Green Globe,
2005). SI, however, are relatively weak in predicting possible implications and
impacts of new tourism developments, especially if these developments are
more complex. Therefore, the assessment results have to be substantiated by
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
data from impact studies about sensitive areas to evaluate possible effects on
neighbours, biodiversity, etc.
(2) Spatial focus – are you assessing globally or on a site-specific basis?
In principle there are two major families of assessment tools:
(1) tools that evaluate mainly global and regional impacts, such as the green
house effect, acidification, ozone depletion, human toxicity and generation
of photo-oxidants (e.g. most LCA and EF); and
(2) tools that concentrate on site-specific, localised impacts (e.g. EIA, AEA and
EA).
Tools of the first category, with a ‘non-site’ specific or ‘global’ focus, have been
developed with the intention to avoid major ‘trade-offs’ (dislocations) such as
those from one environmental medium or region to another. As G ¨
ossling et al.
(2002) demonstrate with their EF analysis of tourism in the Seychelles Islands, air
pollution, induced locally by an international tourist visiting a remote tourism
destination can be relatively small in comparison with the greenhouse gases cre-
ated through air travel to and from the destination. However, in order to handle
the huge amount of data necessary for global impact assessment, tools of the
first category are based on data that is aggregated at source and hence time-
and space-specific information is often lost; G¨
ossling et al.’s 2000 study does not
take into account site-specific components, such as disturbance of wildlife by
emissions, noise and other changes occurring in the local environment. There-
fore, Patterson and McDonald (2004) emphasise that their NZ study was not
site-specific and that the purpose of the LCA was to use a broad scope for
assessment and thereby cover indirect impacts of the tourism sector.
Tools of the second category are particularly necessary to evaluate the envi-
ronmental and social implications of tourism destinations located in ecologically
and/or culturally sensitive environments. A relatively small pressure or load
(e.g. waste, noise or traffic) can cause significantly more damage in systems with
low resiliency to human impact than in cities or industrialised regions. In these
cases, LCA and EF should be combined with tools that allow for site-specific
assessments, such as EIA and EA. Similarly, care must be taken when using SI,
as the high level of aggregation necessary to establish easily comprehensible
SI can lead to a loss of information, which may be essential to draw accurate
conclusions for possible courses of action (Wall et al., 1995). The WTO (2004) pro-
motes SI as an information-based decisionmaking tool for all levels of tourism
planning and management, from local to national levels. Hughes (2002) how-
ever justifiably doubts, whether ‘good indicators’ already exist for the impact
assessment of ecologically fragile areas in the vicinity of tourism destinations.
Therefore the complementation of SI with EIA and AEA is usually necessary for
identification of the need for corrective action.
(3) Focus for change – are you looking at technology or ecosystems?
The focus for change reflects whether the requirement is within the ‘tech-
nosphere’ (e.g. materials, products, technology choices or the performance of
a business) or in the ‘ecosphere’ (e.g. rearrangement of the landscape or land
management). Typical tools that evaluate the technosphere are LCA, MCA and
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
383
SI. These tools allow the comparison of design options, such as sewage/waste
treatment technologies, with respect to ecoefficiency (e.g. energy consumption,
waste generation). EIA, AEA and EA also include evaluation of the ecosphere,
for example, to evaluate how increased waste production, traffic, and noise
affects ecological systems, and biodiversity.
(4) Effects considered – what type of impacts need to be included?
Holistic/triple bottom line assessments
Sustainability comprises three aspects: social, economic and environmental.
Tools that can be used for holistic assessment, and that encompass all three
sustainability aspects, include MCA and SI. As data for social and environ-
mental indicators are usually more difficult to obtain, these tools may become
unavoidably biased (Gallopin, 1997) if the availability of information is taken as
a measure of significance. This is particularly relevant for SI, as they are based
on accessible data. For instance, ecolabelling schemes, such as Green Globe use
SI that are readily available in order to restrict the costs of data collection.
Other assessment tools concentrate on one or two aspects. In particular, LCA
and EF do not consider social impacts (Udo de Haes et al., 2004; Wackernagel &
Rees, 1996). This is a drawback for the assessment of tourism destinations, where
the three aspects are often interconnected. Tourism can, for instance, generate
financial support for conservation management flagged as necessary though the
use of LCA, but this may lead to increased costs in other sectors of a destination
and perhaps unequal income distribution. In extreme cases, this causes social
and environmental pressures, such as increased crime rates and illegal game
hunting.
Cumulative impacts
Most site-specific assessment tools have difficulties in dealing with cumu-
lative impacts; these are particularly important for monitoring regional devel-
opments or evaluating the impacts/outcomes of a multitude of projects in a
single region. This is a key deficiency of the EIA process with respect to tourism
destinations (Warnken & Buckley, 1998). On a project-by-project basis, rela-
tively insignificant impacts may be predicted whereas collective consideration,
especially in conjunction with existing activities in a region, may predict seri-
ous environmental damage. This has also been acknowledged as a weakness
of MCA (Zografos & Oglethorpe, 2004). EIA and MCA should therefore be
complemented by SI, AEA or LCA to ensure cumulative impacts are properly
evaluated.
Dynamic impacts
Most assessment tools are not capable of considering dynamic impacts as they
utilise linear assessment approaches. SI systems, for example, are often based on
annually collected performance indicators, and thus are incapable of responding
to rapid and dynamic changes and non-linearities. Therefore Meadows (1998)
emphasises the need for combining indicators with dynamic models, such as
used in AEA, to gain accurate prediction of potential impacts.
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
The observed difficulties in assessing dynamic impacts are inherent to proce-
dures that are mainly designed and performed as a ‘snapshot’ approach, such as
EF (Roth et al., 2000). These tools are static measures and benefits derived from
them, for example improved management practices, are not incorporated in the
calculations. Thus, Twining-Ward and Butler (2002) argue that linear tools, by
way of example of SI, are not a substitute for detailed dynamic study of tourism
destination processes.
Detection of inter-relationships and feedback loops
The detection of inter-relationships and feedback loops between different im-
pacts can play an important role in the assessment of more complex projects and
developments that have interacting and interdependent components, such as
would be found in a tourism destination incorporating many different tourism
enterprises. Feedback loops can lead to counterintuitive behaviour patterns (e.g.
an unexpected decrease in tourist numbers due to overcrowding of tourism sites
or a rapid deterioration of bathing water quality). Feedback loops usually can-
not be detected by tools that assess aspects in isolation from each other or that
add up aspects linearly.
Although SI can detect simple cause – effect relationships (e.g. higher tourist
numbers lead to increased energy and water consumption), more complex rela-
tionships and effects influenced by various different causes and feedback loops
cannot be analysed. Indirect effects resulting from linkages and dynamic inter-
actions are also not likely to be predicted by means of project-by-project EIAs
(James, 1995). These interactions can prove particularly important for the as-
sessment of the sustainability of whole tourism destinations. The introduction
of one major project in a destination (e.g. an airport or marina) may lead to
a significant expansion of other tourism businesses and supporting industries
and this will have considerable effect on variables such as air pollution, demand
for water supply and land use. Similarly, the linear LCA approach does not
consider highly interrelated and dynamic impacts (Hertwich & Hammitt, 2001).
The same weakness applies to EA and MCA, as the detection of secondary im-
pacts (Patterson & McDonald, 2004) and causal relations between impacts and
effects is also relatively limited.
The only tool that is capable of dealing with complex and interrelated impacts
is the AEA: therefore, this tool should be used more frequently for tourism
destination assessment. In order to restrict the complexity of the simulation
models used in the AEA, it is necessary to combine it with more cost-efficient
tools, such as SI and EA.
Table 4 uses the earlier-mentioned framework to indicate which tools can be
used for which purpose.
Discussion and Conclusions
The assessment of the sustainability of tourism destinations is very complex.
Various tools are in use, which possess different strengths and weaknesses
depending on the characteristics of the tourism destinations and the objective
of the assessment. Therefore, there is a need to understand the available tools
and to select them according to project requirements and knowledge of their
correct usage. For the comprehensive assessment of all sustainability aspects on
Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments
385
all organisational levels of a tourism destination, a combination of tools will be
required to allow the best possible decisionmaking.
For example, SI can be used as a tool to identify areas of concern and priority
areas of action. However, the general information generated by this approach
should be verified and accompanied by more site-specific assessment tools such
as EIA to assess the environmental implications of any new development. EIA
will need to be combined with appropriate monitoring and re-evaluation tools
(e.g. EA) to allow changing conditions, objectives and data to be accounted for.
Complex and dynamic tourism developments could profit from tools that are
capable of considering and responding to non-linear situations and complex in-
terrelationships (e.g. AEA). AEA can also compensate for the weakness of EIA to
assess cumulative impacts resulting from a multitude of tourism developments
or businesses.
In addition, LCA and EF can be used to give national or global information
about sustainability aspects beyond the boundary of tourism destinations, such
as the high energy consumption of travelling to and from tourism destinations.
These aspects are particularly important for policymaking on a national or global
level, but it must be remembered that these tools will not provide information
about potential impacts on, and risks for, local ecology or communities. This
requirement takes the developer of destinations that are located in or near
ecologically sensitive tourism sites (e.g. reefs or mountain regions) back to SI
and EIA.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers, and the editors
Bernard Lane and Bill Bramwell for their input and advice. They are also grateful
for the funding of this research project by the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative
Research Centre, established by the Australian Commonwealth Government.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Karin Schianetz, Department of
Environmental Engineering, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072,
Australia (karin.schianetz@uq.edu.au).
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