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 2021 a new plan for Andalucía’s sustainable tourism was launched (META 2027 Plan) 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 difficult to implement. In fact, it comprises more than 300 differentindicators 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:

1. Existing data sources. Rather than plan new data collection efforts, the first goal was to use already collected data to generate valuable information;
2. DMO 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 DMOs (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 DMOs involved participated in an assessment questionnaire by OECD consultants, 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 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.

Phase 4: implementation and follow up. Starting with some pilot projects, the implementation and review of the designed methods can progressively begin. Among the first results achieved is 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.

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

MAIN BENEFITS

1. Adaptability and flexibility. Being the result of the joint effort of destinations different in terms of territorial dimension (regions vs. cities) and geographical conformation (coastal vs. noncoastal), the resulting framework has the advantage of being adaptable and replicable in heterogeneous contexts.
2. Comparability. Setting standards is essential to make destination comparison and benchmarking possible, as well as to keep track of changes and progresses over time.
3. Economic sustainability. Because it is based on leveraging data already collected from non-private sources (e.g. national and local statistics offices), it enables to contain expenses and to be financially sustainable in the long run.
4. Capacity building. 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

1. 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 generationg process (data collection, verification, aggregation, analysis and visualization).
2. 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 ompanies, 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. The ability of future efforts to build upon already implemented solutions is fundamental to guarantee that EU funding and support systems work well, so the goal is to ultimately culminate the project into a Competence Center to share data-driven approaches to sustainability among European destinations.