Indicators for sustainable tourism development: crossing the divide from definitions to actions

Once the Brundtland Report on sustainable development was published in 1987, and "sustainable tourism" was accepted into the lexicon of tourism discourse, a substantial amount of so-called "sustainable tourism development planning" has occurred in a number of destinations. The use of indicators to monitor development and maintain sustainability were included in these plans, but rarely operationalized effectively. This problem was the result of a lack of agreement over what, exactly, "sustainable tourism development" means, and the resulting confusion over creating indicators for an undefined concept [1, 4, 13, 14, 18]. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of research in sustainable tourism development as it pertains to these indicators that point toward the sustainability of a destination. A substantial amount of literature exists regarding the problems involved in operationalizing the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable tourism [4, 2, 6, 15]. There is, however, evidence suggesting a positive movement toward not only an operational definition of sustainable tourism development, but feasible indicators as well. Several indicator frameworks have been developed by tourism researchers, some based on existing frameworks, such as the Limits of Acceptable Change [1], while others have been constructed according to the site-specific needs of a destination [18]. Research on indicators for sustainable tourism development can help tourism managers translate destination needs (areas in need of rehabilitation, protection, etc) into management actions. This paper will explore these differing indicators for sustainable tourism development, how managers and tourism developers can use these indicators to reach their sustainability goals, and determine the "next step" in the process of achieving sustainable tourism.