Sketching upon Composite Indicators and Sustainable Tourism Issues

Tourism is one of the world's largest industries and one of the fastest growing economic sectors, responsible for multitude of impacts, both positive and negative, on people's lives and on the environment. Simple indicators or aggregate measures are often used to capture versatile aspects of sustainable tourism. This paper sketches upon several issues related to how composite indicators can summarise multidimensional processes into simplified concepts, and eventually underpin the development of data-based narratives for policy consumption. An attempt is made to summarise the controversy surrounding the use of composite indicators with practical and applied examples from the recent literature. We finally argue in favour of multiple simulations to represent different scenarios in the construction of an index prior to drawing any recommendations for policy-making.

SAISANA Michaela; 

2008-11-24

OMEDITOUD Project

JRC47043

http://www.omeditoud.org/en/index.html,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC47043,