The Evaluation of Sustainable Tourism Development by Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Set Theory: An Empirical Study on the Green Island in Taiwan

Sustainable tourism development (STD) has recently become a tourism management guideline. STD 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 (World Tourism Organization, 2004, Concepts & Definitions: Sustainable Development of Tourism Conceptual Definition. Retrieved 12 August 2004 from http://www.world-tourism.org/frameset/frame_sustainable.html). The purpose of this study is to propose an evaluation procedure of STD and illustrate how it can be applied empirically to a specific destination. Green Island in Taiwan, which lies in the Pacific Ocean, was selected to act as our empirical case due to its rich resources but threatened sustainability. First, we collected indicators of STD from the literature about small islands. Second, the Delphi technique was used to refine and identify the final indicators for STD evaluation according to the characteristics of our study case. Third, we calculated the criteria weights by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process after constructing the evaluation criteria hierarchy. Finally, the measurement of performance corresponding to each criterion was conducted under the setting of fuzzy set theory. The results illustrate that our empirical case still needs more work in order to achieve its goal of sustainable tourism development. We also provide some managerial implications for the stakeholders such as tourism authorities, tourism businesses, local communities and academics.     

Tourism in Small Island States: From Vulnerability to Strengths

This article argues that the narrow and frequently negative conceptualisations of small island states as environmentally vulnerable and economically dependent are problematic for sustainable tourism development and for economic development, generally. Scenarios presented to date are often incomplete. Narratives suggesting that island peoples are unskilled and lack resources, and that their islands are ‘tiny’ and ‘fragile’, can undermine their pride and stifle their initiative, reducing their ability to act with autonomy to determine and achieve their own developmental goals. A range of more positive conceptualisations is given, demonstrating the strong social dimensions of sustainability in small island states and the resilience and adaptability of island states. Examples describe a number of positive development paths to sustainable tourism in small island states.     

Sustainable tourism: development,decline and de-growth. Management issues from the Isle of Man

The concept of sustainable tourism emerged as a reaction to the impacts of tourism development. This paper shows the relevance of sustainable tourism to tourism decline and the rising interest in de-growth. Mixed-methods research in the Isle of Man, UK, was carried out by analysing 355 postal questionnaires sent to randomly selected island households, and conducting 32 in-depth personal interviews. The research revealed a series of negative environmental and social consequences of tourism decline in a small island. Such consequences are found to occur despite successful local diversification into other industries, notably offshore finance. Consequences of decline are revealed as tangible, e.g. facilities closure, and as less tangible, e.g. a sense of rejection by off-islanders, and have led to an increasing sense amongst residents of isolation and loss of local attractiveness. Results suggest tourism decline, de-growth and economic replacement require sustainable management in order to facilitate change. Measures such as urban and rural landscape protection, may reduce adverse effects of decline. A re-assessment of the application of the principles of sustainable tourism in the context of decline, rather than development, is needed.     

Indicators of Sustainable Tourism in New Zealand: A Local Government Perspective

The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) established a set of core indicators of sustainable tourism in 1995, which were promoted as a useful tool in the operationalisation of sustainable tourism development. Local authorities provide an established framework within which to operationalise the WTO's core indicators of sustainable tourism. This paper examines the extent to which sustainable tourism is reflected in the research practices and attitudes of local authorities within New Zealand. A nationwide survey investigated the importance of tourism, the current status of research and the perceived value of the WTO's core indicators of sustainable tourism within the New Zealand local authority framework (regional councils, territorial local authorities and regional tourism organisations). The importance of tourism within local authority areas was positively correlated with the number of different research activities undertaken.Two main types of research were identified: demand-related and supply-related research. Demand -related research is undertaken within the majority of local authority areas throughout New Zealand. However, supply-related research is under-represented. The WTO's core indicators were generically grouped into economic, planning, social and ecological indicator types. Regional councils showed a preference towards ecological indicators. Territorial local authorities and regional tourism organisations preferred economic and social indicators. The detailed implications are discussed.     

The coastal tourism industry in the Mediterranean: A critical review of the socio-economic and environmental pressures & impacts

Tourism is a vital economic source in the Mediterranean basin. The sun and beach tourists are of major social and economic importance for almost all Mediterranean countries. However, this industry's extensive and uncontrolled growth may negatively impact these fragile natural coastline areas. In the present study, we review and analyse the driver's forces, pressures, and impacts of the tourism sector development in the Mediterranean countries' environment and economy by using the D (Driver) P (Pressure) S (State) I (Impact) R (Responses) analytical framework. The analysis highlights the critical social and economic roles the coastal tourism industry plays while the steady and uncontrolled growth of this sector and related activities compromise these coastal countries' ecology and environmental quality. This requires the decision-makers and stakeholders' attention toward adopting new strategies and approaches toward greening the blue tourism industry to ensure sustainable economic, social and environmental growth of this industry. In this perspective, we point out the necessity to incorporate environmental issues with economic and socio-cultural needs to obtain complete and harmonized sustainable tourism indicators in the Mediterranean.     

The social-ecological status of small islands: An evaluation of island tourism destination management in Indonesia

A social-ecological system approach has been applied to measure the complexity of sustainable tourism development on small islands. In general, tourism development and ecosystem management have been shown to be relatively unbalanced. Tourism development attempts have not yet been accompanied by environmental management efforts. In this paper, the social-ecological status is measured to improve the sustainable development mechanism with appropriate indicators. Using the Gili Matra Islands as a case study, the social-ecological status of tourism in the region was examined using the social-ecological status index (SESI), a coupling index of the coastal waters quality index (CWQI), the coordination degree model (CCDM) and the index of information entropy weight (IEW) as tools for measuring and evaluating the social-ecological status and sustainable development of small island tourism.     

Sustainability indicators for managing community tourism

The purpose of this study is to develop indicators to measure community tourism development (CTD) within a sustainable framework. In order to develop such objective indicators, this study employed a modified Delphi technique. A panel of 38 academic researchers in tourism provided input into developing the indicators. After three rounds of discussion, the panel members reached consensus on the following set of 125 indicators: political (32), social (28), ecological (25), economic (24), technological (3), and cultural dimensions (13) for CTD. This set of sustainable tourism indicators can serve as a starting-point for devising a set of indicators at the local and regional level. Further study shall develop a set of sustainable indicators relying on communities’ distinctive characteristics and employing indicator experts from the social and physical sciences and from all stakeholder groups, including residents of the host community, industry experts, government planners, policy-makers and non-governmental organizations [United Nations (2001). Managing sustainable tourism development: ESCAP tourism review, No. 22. New York, NY: UN].     

Sustainable Tourism Development in Developing Countries: Some Aspects of Energy Use

Tourism has, in recent years, received increasing attention as a low-impact, non-consumptive development option, in particular for developing countries. This positive view contrasts with the fact that major parts of the tourist industry have remained harmful to the environment and that some aspects, like the use of energy and its global consequences have virtually been excluded from the discussion on sustainable tourism development. In this article, the evolution of tourism paradigms is reviewed with a focus on developing countries. It is shown that tourism has become of prime economic importance for many developing countries, in particular small island states. However, as the cash income generated by tourism is mainly derived from visitors coming from industrialised countries, who have to rely on air travel to arrive at their destination, the issue of energy use is analysed from an ecological perspective. It is shown that the tourism-related use of fossil fuels is significant and has detrimental environmental consequences. Afforestation programmes are discussed as a strategy to overcome the negative effects associated with the emission of greenhouse gases. Overall, it is claimed that energy use is an issue that urgently needs to be integrated into the discourse on sustainable tourism development.     

海岛旅游研究进展与启示——以国际英文期刊载文为例

海岛旅游是国际旅游研究的重要领域,深入分析国际海岛旅游研究的演化脉络和重点领域,对于提升“海洋强国”战略背景下的海岛旅游研究水平,促进双循环发展格局下的产业高质量发展具有重要借鉴意义。以Web of Science^TM为数据源,使用科学计量工具CiteSpace 软件对2000—2019年的1 511篇英文海岛研究文献进行了可视化图谱分析,揭示研究发展脉络与研究热点。结果显示：（1）海岛旅游研究具有显著的阶段性特征,2000年以来可以划分为缓慢发展、稳步发展和快速发展3个阶段,研究内容从关注海岛旅游开发的生态环境影响,逐渐转向海岛旅游地人地关系的和谐发展;（2）国际海岛旅游研究具有市场依赖性和资源依托性特征,研究区域和研究对象大多集中在发达国家或海岛资源丰富国家,三位高引频次最高学者为Gossling、Hall和Scheyvens,发文期刊集中在环境科学与生态学、海洋海岸科学和旅游学3个领域;（3）海岛旅游研究热点主要集中在海岛旅游地资源环境、海岛旅游与全球气候变化、海岛旅游市场、海岛旅游经济影响、海岛旅游社区、海岛游客消费行为、海岛旅游规划与管理、海岛旅游可持续发展等领域。中国海岛旅游研究应在借鉴国际海岛旅游研究方法和成果基础上,完善海岛旅游理论与研究方法,加强海岛旅游资源与环境,海岛可持续旅游,海岛经济与文化影响,海岛游客消费行为等领域的研究。     

Complexity science: an alternative world view for understanding sustainable tourism development

Tourism research has generally taken a reductionist approach and has not effectively understood tourism as a stakeholder within a complex system (CS) of stakeholders. As a result, interpretations of sustainable tourism development (STD) are highly focused and sector-specific, thereby limiting understanding of the complex inter-relationships between tourism components and other components within a system. This paper explores complexity science as an alternative paradigm to understand why STD is problematic. It is argued that a new world view is required to understand the unpredictable world in which tourism operates. Complexity science and the associated chaos theory offer an alternative paradigm for viewing and understanding tourism phenomena. Viewing underlying influences on a CS in terms of the characteristics of complexity science, including the edge of chaos, strange attractors and conflict provides greater understanding of the system in which tourism operates. The second part of the paper discusses a framework, adapted from complexity science characteristics, to identify the complex inter-relationships between stakeholders with political, environmental, economic, social and cultural interests in an urban river context, the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia.     

Reviewing integrated sustainability indicators for tourism

Integrated sustainability indicators for tourism (ISIT) address tourism as an element of both economic and socio-ecological systems and as actively integrated in multi-level policy-making and planning. This paper aims to review studies of ISIT in peer-reviewed journals with a focus on methodological approaches. By specifically examining ISIT, this study embraces the interdisciplinary nature of both sustainability science and tourism studies. The results are based on a systematic literature review and categorization of the studies’ academic disciplines, methods and organization of indicators. The results reveal that despite being a relatively young area of study, research on ISIT has developed simultaneously across multiple academic disciplines, and is expanding. There seems to be greater interest in developing new methodologies than applying existing indicator frameworks. Most papers refer to indicators thematically and thus discuss tourism separately in the contexts of environmental, social or economic impact. However, emerging approaches analyze tourism as a system of interconnected components and an element of multi-level policy-making. These approaches emphasize public participation and a continuous redefinition of sustainability challenges in response to changes in socio-ecological systems. Current research on ISIT thus focuses on the interconnectedness of indicators and sustainable development as a dynamic process rather than an end goal.     

要素结构变动、制度环境与旅游经济高质量发展

文章在对旅游经济发展质量的内涵构成、影响因素进行文献梳理的基础上,从行动资源与保障机制两个视角构建了旅游经济高质量发展的行动逻辑框架,并对要素结构变动、制度环境及二者交互作用促进旅游经济高质量发展的机理进行了分析。基于效率、结构和环境3个维度构建并测算了旅游经济发展质量指标,运用2003-2016年省际面板数据对理论分析进行了实证检验。结果表明:(1)要素结构变动、制度环境分别是旅游经济发展质量提升的行动资源、保障机制;(2)代表要素结构变动的资本劳动投入比对中、东部地区旅游经济发展质量的正向作用显著,对西部地区的作用不显著,而景区禀赋对中、西部地区的作用显著,对东部地区作用不显著;(3)制度环境对旅游经济发展质量总体上具有正向促进作用,对中、东部地区作用显著,对西部地区的作用尚不显著;(4)制度环境能够调节要素结构变动的作用方向及程度,二者交互形成集成动力对各地区旅游经济发展质量均产生正向作用。针对上述结论,文章从基于供给侧结构性改革推动要素结构升级、制度创新等视角提出了促进旅游经济高质量发展的相关建议。     

Introducing the concept of environmental policy integration into the discourse on sustainable tourism: a way to improve policy-making and implementation?

Many studies have explored how the tourism sector and tourism policies understand and relate to the concept of sustainable development. A common conclusion is that tourism concentrates on economic and social viability at the expense of environmental sustainable development. This paper considers if and how the concept of environmental policy integration (EPI) could improve sustainable tourism policy implementation. It defines EPI, and explores both the three-level (co-ordination, harmonization and prioritization) and four-level (inclusion, consistency, priorities and reporting) EPI approaches. It notes that there is both strong and weak EPI, and both political systems and policy analysis approaches. The paper then describes Norway's post-2007 adoption of sustainable tourism as a central part of its national tourism development strategy, with 10 defined principles, and suggested defined development standards, and assesses the implementation of the national strategy through the lens of the EPI concept. While there are now 18 pilot sustainable tourism destinations, with 44 criteria and 108 indicators, there remain many difficult issues to address. A series of suggestions are made, the chief of which is the need for a politically strong central authority that has been entrusted with having environmental concerns within the tourism sector as its key mandate.     

A comparison of the moderating effect of tourism reliance on the economic development for islands and other countries

Tourism is usually one of the top industries in most countries, especially islands. However, there is some question as to whether there is a negative potential impact if a country relies too much on tourism as a means of economic development to the detriment of other industries such as manufacturing and agriculture. The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of tourism reliance on the relationship between tourism development and economic development for regular countries and island economies, including “small island developing states” (SIDS). This study uses quantile regression on panel data from the WDI database from 1995 through 2014 for all of the countries that report tourism and economic data. The findings demonstrate that tourism reliance does have a moderating effect on the relationship between tourism development and economic development for all countries, but mainly at higher levels of economic development.     

The impact of women's empowerment on sustainable tourism development: Mediating role of tourism involvement

Women's empowerment has been prioritised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) recently, in line with the Saudi Vision 2030; albeit, women are still underrepresented in tourism industry. However, if robust women's empowerment is consolidated into planning and implementation processes, tourism can act as a vehicle for encouraging gender parity. This study examines the direct impact of women's empowerment (psychologically, politically, and socially) on sustainable tourism development (STD) and the indirect impact through tourism involvement. A total of 1000 women involved in the tourism industry in KSA filled out self-administrated questionnaires, analyzed using SPSS™ and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS. The results suggest that tourism involvement partially mediates the relationship between psychological and political empowerment and STD. Nonetheless, it fully mediates the relationship between social empowerment and STD. Several implications of the results for both policy-makers, tourism planners and tourism scholars are discussed.     

皖南古村落可持续旅游发展限制性因素探析

皖南古村落通过发展旅游业带动社会和经济发展，是增强自身能力的现实选择，而只有遵循可持续发展原则，才能真正实现旅游发展与古村落发展的“双赢”。目前，皖南古村落旅游发展中存在一些不利因素，如旅游开发、经营和管理粗放；资源保护、利用与旅游发展关系不协调；旅游发展与社区发展的联系不紧密等，势必限制自身可持续旅游发展的进程。本文尝试在可持续旅游发展原则的指导下，对皖南古村落旅游发展中的一些限制性因素进行分析和总结。     

浅析民族地区旅游可持续发展的某些限制性因素

近20年来，民族旅游业极大地推动了民族地区社会和经济的发展。然而，在民族旅游业迅速发展的过程中，一些民族地区的自然和人文资源也受到了威胁和破坏。可持续发展是我国旅游业发展的基本战略。无论何种性质的旅游业，只有把可持续发展作为其发展的基本模式，才可能有效地利用和保护旅游资源。本文在实地考察的基础上，并借鉴一些他人的调查资料，对限制民族旅游业的可持续发展中的一些因素进行了初步的分析，指出目前我国的一些相关的理论和政策都存在一些误区。要使我国民族旅游业持续发展下去，理论上对旅游业的性质需要进一步明确，政策上田要进一步朝着有利于当地人的利益方面进行调整。     

Is sustainable tourism an obstacle to the economic performance of the tourism industry? Evidence from an international empirical study

Sustainability has become an important strategic objective for tourism destinations worldwide. All analytical tourism competitiveness models make direct or indirect positive references to sustainability. It is accepted that sustainable tourism can reduce resource costs and help create market differentiation. Nevertheless, it has traditionally been considered that, short term, sustainability measures can reduce profitability and compromise competitiveness. Debates on the progress, implications, and practicality of sustainable tourism remain open. The relationship between economic sustainability, and environmental and sociocultural sustainability, is a central but largely unresearched area for tourism scholars, especially at the macro level. This study explores that difficult but essential area, using the World Economic Forum's empirical evidence from 128 countries, backed by the economic data search tool of the World Travel & Tourism Council. It demonstrates that progress in tourism sustainability does not affect a country's main economic tourism indicators in the short term, and does not constrain profitability and competitiveness. It also finds that sustainable tourism is not a luxury that only rich countries can afford, nor should it prevent development and perpetuate poverty in developing countries. An effective marketing and communication program about sustainable tourism is, however, found to be essential for economic success.     

Outlying Islands as a Tourist Destination for Local Residents: The Case of Cheung Chau in Hong Kong

Cheung Chau is an outlying island in Hong Kong, which is relatively untouched by the region's rapid economic development. The island provides a dramatic contrast to the cosmopolitan city center, one of the most popular travel destinations in Asia and a major business hub. This makes Cheung Chau a special attraction for local residents seeking to get away from their routine lives. However, no published studies have examined the opinions of residents on sustainable tourism development on Hong Kong's outlying islands and the motivating factors that drive residents to visit those islands. Hence, an exploratory qualitative study was undertaken to develop an understanding of the public's motivation for visiting Cheung Chau. The results of in-depth interviews with 15 residents who had visited the island are presented, along with an examination of the future direction of tourism development in Cheung Chau.     

Using multiple indicators to evaluate the sustainability of dolphin-based wildlife tourism in rural India

Abstract

Assessing wildlife tourism sustainability in developing countries is crucial, but few studies analyse the sustainability of dolphin-based wildlife tourism in this context. We measure multiple indicators within the human dimensions of wildlife tourism, including tourist visitation numbers, satisfaction, preferences, perceptions, background and specialisation, to ascertain the extent to which the dolphin-watching industry at Chilika Lagoon, in rural India might be considered sustainable. Our methods included participant observation, tourist surveys, and the use of secondary data on visitation over 10 years. We found that the growth rate of tourist visitation over 10 years was beginning to decline. Tourists were mostly inexperienced, and dissatisfied with their dolphin-watching experience. Tourist preferences and perceptions showed useful insights and shortcomings in the way in which the industry was being conducted and managed, and reflected the expectations of non-specialist visitors. Our study highlights drawbacks in the way that wildlife tourism is managed in a rural, developing world context, which draws the sustainability of the dolphin-watching industry in Chilika into question. Future development of an early warning system that addresses combined governance or managerial, social, economic and ecological indicators, and an integrated management plan for conservation and wildlife tourism could contribute to the sustainable management of such industries.