Theodora Papatheochari (p), Antonia Koutsopoulou, Spyros Niavis, Harry Coccossis

Zvonimir Kuliš

European Territorial Cooperation (ETC), also known as the Interreg programme, is one of the two goals of the EU Cohesion Policy, which aims at reducing the disparities between EU regions. Tourism constitutes a common intervention field of ETC towards sustainability, especially in coastal regions. In this vein, the Interreg Med Programme funded a community of projects with the aim of promoting sustainable and responsible coastal and maritime tourism in the Mediterranean region during the 2014-2020 programming period. Although the objectives of the Sustainable Tourism Community (STC) were built upon the priorities of the previous period, its outputs are linked to the new priorities of the Interreg programme and cohesion policy. Under this notion, considering the types of eligible regions with respect to their tourism characteristics and development potential and economic status could prove essential for generating effective interventions for the new period. The objective of this paper is to assess the allocation of projects and funds to the Mediterranean regions considering tourism and development characteristics. To do so, the paper uses two different regional typologies. A tourism-related typology of Mediterranean regions based on the types of projects implemented and a typology related to cohesion policy objectives that classify regions according to their achieved level of economic development.
Under the first typology, five types of destinations occur through the project-based analysis: a) urban destinations, b)islands, c) destinations with environmentally important assets, d)coastal sites of important value and e) coastal regions. The second typology identifies types of regions using the Cohesion Policy eligibility architecture for allocating funds (more developed, transition, and less developed regions).
After analysing the typologies, the paper examines the allocation of funds and projects among the different types of regions in order to identify the types of tourism destinations that were active during the 2014-2020 period. In addition, the paper aims to unveil the alignment of the distributed budget with the Cohesion Policy funding allocation methodology within the cooperation area of the Interreg MED Programme and highlight potential imbalances and deviations in the context of reducing regional disparities.
The findings include three strands of generated knowledge, related to the type of destination, the budget allocated, and the regions’ performance, that, when interlinked and compared, provide useful information on the types of tourism destinations attracting funding and their position to the priorities of the cohesion policy covering both 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 periods.

Giulia Iannone (p)

Theodora Papatheochari

Tourism is one of the most important economic sectors worldwide in terms of value added, income generation and employment creation. However, it has major impacts which can be devastating for the environment and for communities. Also, tourism is a sector which is extremely exposed to a range of vulnerabilities and is heavily affected by a series of disruptions (financial crisis, exchange rate fluctuations, oil prices, natural disasters) which undermine the stability and integrity of destinations. Therefore, the tourism sector is called to face a series of key challenges: continue to generate economic benefits, improve its resilience to different types of shocks and nullify its negative impacts on the environment and on the local population. The aim of this paper is to provide insight on how these goals can be achieved by clarifying and understanding the relationship between productivity, resilience and sustainability of the tourism sector and analyzing how it changes in different regional contexts throughout time. From the empirical standpoint, we set our analysis in Italy and use data at the NUTS2 level to first propose a taxonomy of the twenty regions based on an index summarizing the productivity and resilience of the tourism sector in each region. We use social sequence analysis to examine the time dynamics and then set up an econometric model to look at the role played by sustainable tourism in determining regions’ trajectories. We measure sustainable tourism by means of a composite indicator, which allows us to capture the multidimensionality of the concept. This will contribute to constructing a theoretical framework which can provide support for policy-design and decision-making processes. Indeed, many of the externalities of tourism are the result of actions taken by the private sector, but it is up to institutions to provide an environment that enables and incentivizes stakeholders to respond to these issues.

Lourdes Badillo-Amador, Andres Artal-Tur (p), Jose María Ramos-Parreño

Giulia Iannone

Tourism is one of the key industries in the world, accounting for more than 30% of
employment in the service sector, plus 10% of GDP contribution. After the huge impact
that Covid-19 posed on the tourism and hospitality sector, the year 2022 have shown a
relevant recovery of international flows, with global numbers being around 73% of those
reached in 2019. Spain is at the top of the tourism world destinations, with 82 million of
arrivals and 80,000 million US$ of revenues before the pandemic. The UN framework of
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for 2030 identify the sustainability of human
activity as one of the main challenges for the near future. Recommendations for the
tourism sector include their economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts on
local destinations.
Pursuing this challenge, the present paper investigates the most relevant systems of
tourism sustainability indicators in the world. We analyse the proposals launched by
global institutions such as the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), and the
European Tourism Indicators System (ETIS) of the European Commission. We also study
the Spanish proposals of Smart Tourism Indicators of Sustainability (Indicadores DTI),
prescribed by the Spanish Ministry of Tourism, together with that of the UNWTO
International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (ISTO) adopted by salient
destinations in the country, like Mallorca, Canary Islands or Barcelona.
In this setting, the objective of the paper is threefold: Firstly, we review the content and
spirit of systems of indicators proposed by these outstanding institutions in the field of
tourism research and policy. In doing so, we identify the main linkages and differences
arising among them. Secondly, we seek for the informational features of the selected
sets of sustainability indicators. In that way, we follow the main academic
methodologies to clarify their explanatory capacity and the overlapping statistical
nature arising for some of them (see, i.e., Ivars-Baidal et al. 2021). Thirdly, building on
the previous analysis, we define a proposal of indicators that combine academic rigour
and policy applicability. The main contribution of the research is to introduce a usable
and depurated system of sustainable tourism indicators, shedding more light in that
complex environment.

Zvonimir Kuliš (p), Bogdan-Constantin Ibanescu, Bart Neuts, Blanka Šimundić (p)

Andres Artal-Tur

Tourism is a significant contributor to the economies of many countries, however, the industry is susceptible to external shocks, such as economic recessions, natural disasters, and pandemics, which can have a negative impact on the sector's stability and resilience.
According to WTTC data, the travel and tourism sector was a significant contributor to global GDP and job creation before COVID-19, accounting for 10.3% of all jobs and GDP. The pandemic caused a massive loss of $4.9 trillion and 62 million jobs in 2020. But, in 2021, the sector's contribution to global GDP increased by $1 trillion, and 18.2 million jobs were recovered. The European Union (EU-27), representing more than one-third of global tourist international arrivals, also experienced similar trends. In 2019, EU tourism represented 9.6% of GDP and 22.9 million jobs. Yet, COVID-19 caused a reduction of tourism contribution to GDP by 45.2% and 3 million job losses. While signs of recovery have appeared, the GDP increase was 25.4% in 2021 with less than a million jobs recovered.
The ability of tourism to recover from these shocks depends on a range of factors that influence its resilience. This study aims to investigate the determinants of tourism resilience capacity in the European Union NUTS-2 regions using a spatial-econometric approach.
We employ a dataset covering 242 NUTS-2 regions with tourism resilience (measured as resistance and recovery during 2019-2021) as a dependent variable. Moreover, independent variables include: i) tourism demand-derived indicators (tourist intensity, tourism, the share of domestic tourism, tourism density, tourism seasonality), ii) tourism supply-derived indicators (tourism capacity, tourism diversity, presence of cultural and natural heritage) and iii) control variables (GDP, innovation, governance). Data is collected from Eurostat and EU Tourism Dashboard.
To estimate results we employ several spatial regression estimators to capture spatial dependence among observations, as well as to perform a robustness check. More precisely, we use the Spatial Lag Model, Spatial Error Model and Spatial Durbin Model.
Results indicate which variables are most important for tourism resilience, as well as to capture potential spillover effects of tourism resilience between neighboring regions.
This study contributes to the literature and better understanding of tourism resilience capacity in EU NUTS 2 regions. The findings offer insights into the factors that influence the resilience of tourism and can help policymakers and practitioners to develop effective strategies to enhance tourism resilience and reduce the negative impact of external shocks on the tourism industry.