Management Accounting in European Finance for Smart Tourism and Sustainable Destinations: How Organizations Deficiency?

Abstract

The research investigates the interplay of sustainable tourism, management, monitoring, destination life cycles and stakeholder involvement in Sardinia destinations. Management techniques are considered critical to the sustainable stewardship and competitiveness of tourism destinations, especially in an island context where tourism is business all year round and all seasons. The importance of tourism management and monitoring in destinations and organizations is particularly highlighted through an explanation of sustainable tourism indicator systems such as that created by the European Commission. Systems such as this will help position Europe as the leading sustainable tourism destination in the world both now and in the future. The research followed an inductive approach. According to the general principles of the inductive methodology, knowledge is gathered from detailed observation of facts. This study permits to adopt of multiple research methods, both qualitative and quantitative. The analysis is grounded in documents, direct observations and questionnaires. In the first phase, only qualitative methods were utilized. This classification is supported by the assessor answers: moderate to the low development of tourism; partial participation of the local community with some facilities provided to visitors; a clear tourism season and emerging tourism markets; high to moderate tourism impacts respectively on destination A (North Sardinia) and B (South Sardinia); and a level of contact between tourists and the local population that can be classified as low in the Destination A and between low and moderate in Destination B. The effects of public policies and tourism development cannot be measured only in economic terms, such as return on investments, tourist expenditures, jobs and the like, but in terms of the well-being of residents in the area and consequently, the happiness of tourists and other visitors.