Critical Measurements to Drive Sustainability

In honor of World Tourism Day, our partner Mabrian released valuable reporting capabilities:

• A new index to help destinations identify the most sustainable source markets

• How vital rethinking tourism and the footprint it leaves on the planet is

• The ‘Income / Carbon Footprint’ index compares income generated by visitors with their carbon footprint, on a source-market-by-source-market basis

According to Mabrian, the basis of sustainability of a destination is to achieve a balance between the tourist experience, the well-being of the residents, the conservation of the environment and the profitability of the sector. In this way, the leading company in tourism intelligence helps destination managers and tourism companies with tools that allow them to make decisions aligned with this balance through big data analysis.

To its six existing Sustainability indices that Mabrian has, it now adds a new index: the Income / Carbon Footprint Index. This new indicator relates the average income generated by a visitor at the destination, with the impact of the carbon footprint of traveling to the destination by air. The objective of this index is to identify the markets or segments that offer greater efficiency between the pollution they generate and the wealth they contribute to the destination.

Although the carbon footprint generated by a tourist is not limited to air travel, nor is the tourist’s expenditure dedicated exclusively to sustainability, it is an index with a very valid approximation to identify those markets that generate more wealth in the local economy of residents, with the least possible impact on the environment.

This indicator, added to others Mabrian offers – such as the distribution of tourist income in the local economy, the concentration of the tourist offer in the territory, the perception of sustainability, the motivational diversification of visitors, the degree of dependence on certain markets of origin and, finally, seasonality –  offer a more complete vision of the desired balance of a sustainable tourist destination.

Seville as an example 

Analysing the case of Seville, if we apply this index we can verify that the average income per stay that the city receives directly from visitors is 1.8 dollars for each kilogram of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. This ratio shows great disparity between the average and the main markets of origin. In the top 10 most efficient markets for Seville are Portugal, Switzerland and France, while the United Kingdom and Germany, more traditional markets by volume of visitors to the destination, are much further down.

Carlos Cendra, Director of Sales and Marketing at Mabrian, explains: “Based on the fact that traveling is vital for human beings and tourism is a necessity, we have to try to ensure that its impact is positive for both the traveller and community who receives these visits and the impact on their environment. On this World Tourism Day, we at Mabrian propose to destinations to work with tourism objectives based on efficiency and sustainability, instead of the normal volume of visitors, to create a balance and make destinations more sustainable ions.”