Abstract
Tourism represents a key economic sector worldwide, constituting great leverage for local economic development but also putting noticeable environmental pressures on local natural resources. Ecotourism may be a viable alternative to mass tourism to minimize impacts on ecosystems, but it needs shared sustainability standards and monitoring tools to evaluate impacts. This paper presents a first methodological proposition to calculate the environmental impact of ecotourism packages through the use of an ad-hoc, customized version of the Ecological Footprint methodology. It follows a participatory, bottom-up approach to collecting input data for the four main services (Accommodation, Food & Drinks, Activity & Service, and Mobility & Transfer) provided to tourists through the use of surveys and stakeholders engagement. The outcome of our approach materializes in an excel-based ecotourism workbook capable of processing input data collected through surveys and returning Ecological Footprint values for specific ecotourism packages. Although applied to ecotourism in Mediterranean Protected Areas within the context of the DestiMED project, we believe that the methodology and approach presented here can constitute a blueprint and a benchmark for future studies dealing with the impact of ecotourism packages.
Highlights
This paper presents a first methodological proposition to calculate the environmental impact of ecotourism packages through the use of an ad-hoc, customized version of the Ecological Footprint methodology
Applied to ecotourism in Mediterranean Protected Areas within the context of the DestiMED project, we believe that the methodology and approach presented here can constitute a blueprint and a benchmark for future studies dealing with the impact of ecotourism packages
In order to address the methodological challenges related to the tourism sector, as a first result of our research here we present a customized version of the EF methodology, which was developed within the DestiMED project
Summary
Tourism creates employment, drives exports (by exports we mean the money spent by foreign visitors within a country for both business and leisure trips [1]), and generates prosperity, contributing to 11.4% of the regional GDP [1]. This revenue stream and the expected further growth in international tourists’ arrivals comes with several challenges that are likely to influence the long-term development and success of the region [3]: social inequity, weak governance and degradation of cultural heritage, and competition for limited space, as well as impacts on the ecosystems, pollution generation, resources depletion, sea level
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