Measuring and monitoring sustainability of coastal tourism destinations in the Mediterranean

Abstract

A key component towards sustainability in coastal tourist destinations is to establish monitoring and evaluation schemes in order to measure the impacts of tourism on the economy, society and the environment. Although there is a great deal of frameworks providing the methodological baseline for developing the essential monitoring schemes, the relevant literature has shown that a challenge still exists on adapting these general frameworks to the particularities of the destinations under assessment. This paper presents a framework that measures and monitors sustainability at the local level by introducing a three-tier system of indicators. The framework manages to incorporate the different types of tourism activities as well as the special characteristics of coastal tourist destinations in the Mediterranean while at the same time allows for comparisons among them. The paper emphasizes the role of local stakeholders’ engagement in the development of the monitoring framework and discusses the challenges that emerged during the process. Essentially, the paper provides an alternative way for adjusting general frameworks to allow sustainability evaluations at the local level. In this sense, five types of coastal tourism destinations have been identified as critical in the case of the Mediterranean: beach/maritime destinations, urban/cultural, cruising, recreational boating and nature/ecotourism destinations.