Projects, Events and Training Stakeholders’ Participation for enhancing Sustainable Tourism Performances: ETIS Dr. Nadia Theuma Executive Director Projects, Events and Training Paragon Europe

Overview Some key points about sustainable tourism and sustainable tourism indicators ETIS Tool ETIS grid and the seven steps ETIS pilot testing phase: learning from experience Insights for the ETIS implementation

Tourism Development

Destinations

Challenges facing Mediterranean Tourism Destinations GLOBALISATION CLIMATE CHANGE COMPETITION LABOUR MARKET POLITICAL SITUATION

Sustainable Tourism: Defined “ Sustainable tourism development meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems.” WTO (1999)

Sustainable Tourism

7 Good Reasons for Promoting Sustainability A better quality of life Create diversity through new businesses Develop infrastructure Protect cultural heritage Promote creativity and innovation Promote female jobs, create new economic activity For our children: Our Future

Indicators for Sustainability – Why? Decision makers need to know how: Their actions can affect the assets and values of the destination External factors can affect their interests Tourism in particular, interacts with the other uses and users of the destination and its assets The objective is to reduce future risks to the ecological, socio-cultural and economic functions of regions (destinations) and to enhance overall sustainability

Good Indicators Relevant: important to real decisions Feasible: Practical to obtain, current, accessible when needed Credible: objective and based on good science Clear: understandable and meaningful to users Comparable: can show changes over time and between destinations (UNWTO, 1997; 2004)

Benefits of Tourism Indicators Measuring tourism performances and monitoring own results will make it possible to: Get better data for informed policy decision making Establish an intelligent approach to tourism planning Identify areas/impacts that need improvement Prioritize action projects Manage risks effectively Create benchmarks of performance

The ETIS Tool ETIS is a Europe-wide system suitable for all tourist destinations, encouraging them to adopt a more intelligent approach to tourism planning. It is: a management tool, supporting destinations who want to take a sustainable approach to destination management a monitoring system, easy to use for collecting data and detailed information and to let destinations monitor their performance from one year to another an information tool (not a certification scheme), useful for policy makers,  tourism enterprises and other stakeholders.

The Grid Flexible and adaptable system Mix of Core and Optional Indicators Four (4) categories: Destination Management Indicators Economic value Indicators Social and cultural Impacts Environmental Impacts http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/tourism/offer/sustainable/indicators_en

How to implement ETIS: The Seven Steps Step 1. Raise Awareness Step 2. Create a Destination Profile Step 3. Form a Stakeholder Working Group (SWG) Return to SWG to agree priorities and develop a plan of action Step 4. Establish Roles and Responsibilities Step 5. Collect and Record Data Step 6. Analyse results Step 7. Enable ongoing Development and Continuous improvement

Lessons from ETIS (1) Step 1: Create Awareness: Targeted audience Involve local authorities from the early stage of the process Appropriate use of local media Step 2: Create a Destination Profile Defining the destination from some countries can be difficult City vs. tourism zones; cultural centres vs. leisure areas Step 3: Form a SWG Establishing a destination SWG representing the complexity of the Tourism Sector Essential to have a strong coordinator leading the SWG

Lessons from ETIS (2) Step 4: Roles and Responsibility The SWG may not have access to all the data in the grids Data collection should be consistent over time – log book for data collection Step 5: Collecting Data From data/indicators to their use for strategies and decision making (ETIS as a process towards a more committed approach) some data may not be available, Need to adapt survey template to destination needs Voluntary – based a limitations in resources to conduct surveys for data collection

Lessons from ETIS (3) Step 6: Analysis of results Step 7: Improvements Role of Action Plans for timely analysis of data Step 7: Improvements Feedback loop allows for improvement of data Possibility to share knowledge and experience with other destinations through portal and case studies

The Process Establish the SWG for Destination Involve stakeholders by means of info meetings and focus groups with the individual stakeholder groups Analyse routine data, modify data collection and introduce new data sets RESULT: sustainability is an internal process that can be planned and directed

Typical Stakeholder Engagement

Insights from ETIS implementation Clarifying the process, and roles: each stakeholder member of SWG is called to take directly responsibility on the process Sharing information Generating and sharing benefits: bridging academia, professionals and practitioners Working together: aim for nowadays and the near future Sustainability becomes the business of everyone: in this way all stakeholders are able to contribute towards the formulation of sustainable tourism policy

Questions for the Workshop Why does our destination require indicator analysis? Which of the 4 categories of destination management, economic values, social and cultural and environmental impact is most pressing for the destination? Whom will you approach to lead the study and why? Who could be your stakeholder group? Why? What challenges do you envisage in implementing ETIS in your destination? How will you overcome these, who will you use to help you? What benefits do you envisage?

For further information kindly contact: Thank you For further information kindly contact: nadia.theuma@paragoneurope.eu