Evaluating a standard for sustainable tourism through the lenses of local industry

Abstract

This paper investigates the reasons for the failure of the Mediterranean Standard for Sustainable Tourism (MESST), a European Union initiative to create sustainable certification schemes for tourism destinations and local enterprises in Southeast Europe. Following an ex-post facto analysis based on the opinions of local tourism professionals who had involved in the creation of MESST in 2007, this study evaluates the credibility and the applicability of the standard in Rhodes island, Greece. The findings indicate that structural idiosyncrasies of cultural, political and socio-economic context influence the perceptions of the local tourism industry regarding tourism sustainability. According, to the results the incomplete accreditation process, the inability of tourism businesses to comply with technical and operational requirements, inadequate local governance and a general feeling of distrust to local authorities and tourism institutions sabotaged the utility and adoption of the standard. Finally, the study questions the capacity of sustainability indicators to map out the constant transformations and challenges of destinations so that to provide feasible benefits for tourism professionals, enhance the well-being of host communities and deliver quality services for visitors.

Establishing a Sustainable Sports Tourism Evaluation Framework with a Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model to Explore Potential Sports Tourism Attractions in Taiwan

“…Government commitment and public trust are often based on the integrity of regulations and institutions. The key factor for the success of sports tourism promotion is policy support [6,7,11]. This study extends the concept of institutional sustainability proposed by Asmelash and Kumar [11] to formulate four criteria: regional ordinance protection (C 41 ), policy promotion and marketing (C 42 ), sports tourism land planning (C 43 ), and local government involvement (C 44 ).…”

“…The development of sports culture combined with tourism will increase the length of stay of tourists. Sports diversity (C 14 ) can attract more tourists of different ages to participate in scenic activities, and promote local prosperity and recreational diversity [6,[11][12][13][14][32][33][34].…”

“…The enrichment of local features (C 35 ) refers to keeping local culture and combining external, themed activities or commodities to enhance the richness of sports tourism. Emergency response and rescue (C 36 ) is an indispensable assessment item, and is a basic element of the safety of sports tourism [6,8,[10][11][12]33,36,[39][40][41].…”

“…In recent years, various countries have realized that mass tourism will bring environmental pollution, garbage accumulation, and disruption of social order. Therefore, sustainable development has been introduced into the tourism industry in order to devise more environmentally friendly tourism planning [4][5][6][7][8]. The concept of sustainable development is "the process by which people maintain environmental balance and harmony in resource development, investment direction, technological development, and institutional change while meeting human needs and future development, and the benefits they bring are in line with social expectations."…”

“…However, there are many studies suggesting different sustainable tourism evaluation frameworks. For example, Gkoumas [6] proposed an evaluation model for sustainable tourism in the Mediterranean region. The study shows that culture, politics, and economy are the main factors affecting the region's sustainable development.…”