The growing concern about the impacts caused by tourism, as well as the general acceptance of the commitment to sustainable development, has led the world community to reassess tourism activities in light of long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability.
In this century, initiatives have been created for the analysis, monitoring and evaluation of tourism activity, one of them being the International Network of Observatories for Sustainable Tourism of the World Tourism Organization (WTO).
This Network, created in 2004 and which already has 27 Observatories around the world, has two objectives:
i) Support continuous improvement of sustainability and resilience in the tourism sector through systematic, timely and regular monitoring of the performance, use of resources and impact of tourism in order to better understand the implications of tourism development at one level subnational destination and foster responsible tourism management; and
ii) Provide to the policy makers, tourism planners and managers, and other stakeholders, indispensable tools – through the systematic application of monitoring, evaluation and information management techniques – to strengthen institutional capacities to support the formulation and implementation of policies, strategies, plans and processes sustainable management of tourism.
Finally, it can be said that this International Network of Observatories intends to gather, share and encourage the application of good practices, as well as capitalize on innovation in destinations in order to achieve an ever greater development of sustainable tourism.
Since the Algarve is the most important tourist region in the country, it cannot and should not stay away from that network.
Thus, last March 2019, the first step was taken towards the Algarve's association with this Network. The Observatory for Sustainable Tourism of the Algarve was created as a result of a partnership between the Algarve Tourism Region (RTA), the Algarve Coordination and Regional Development Commission (CCDR-Algarve), the University of Algarve and Turismo de Portugal.
The Observatory's mission is (1) to support the continuous improvement of the sustainability of tourism in the Algarve in the social, economic and environmental dimensions, through monitoring, evaluation and information to the community on the contours of tourism developments in the region and their impacts; and (2) support the decision-making process with a view to the development of the Algarve as a healthier, greener, resilient and regenerated destination, with a better quality of life, with better mobility, air and water quality and reduced crime.
The mission embodies a set of objectives to be achieved in the short, medium and long term, among which are the following:
1. Define and implement a model for monitoring tourism activity and its impacts and provide information to public and private decision-makers;
2. Create an environment for reflection, learning and awareness of the need to promote sustainable tourism;
3. Promote communication and networking.
In addition to the mission and objectives, there were several conjunctural factors that contributed to the creation of the Observatory by these four institutions, namely:
i. The strategic relevance that public tourism policies in Portugal give to the theme of Sustainability;
ii. The vision defined in the 2027 Tourism Strategy, which aims to position Portugal as one of the most competitive and sustainable tourist destinations in the world;
iii. The need to create scientific-based operational instruments that can support the monitoring of the goals defined in the Tourism 2027 Strategy in terms of Sustainability;
iv. The experience that RTA has with various initiatives that aim to promote sustainable development in the Algarve, as well as the intention of better sustainable management of the destination;
v. The purposes of promoting regional development, based on sustainability and competitiveness, inscribed in the framework of competences of CCDR-Algarve;
saw. The growing vitality of the University of Algarve in terms of teaching and research in the area of Tourism and Hospitality.
Indeed, the University of Algarve will have a central role in the implementation of the Observatory, as, through the know-how of its professors and researchers, will provide the Observatory with an analytical and scientific component of modeling the tourist activity and its impacts that other partners cannot offer.
In fact, the projects that the University of the Algarve has successfully conducted at the observational level, namely IMPACTUR and OBSERVE, are examples of what the University can do, but at the same time experiences to be taken into account in this Observatory, which started from the beginning. to mobilize important regional actors.
At this level, it is important to point out that we believe that the implementation of an Observatory for Sustainable Tourism in the Algarve should be based on a broad platform of partnerships with stakeholders Algarve's public and private sectors and with research centers and study and development centers of the University of the Algarve whose priority research areas are Tourism and Sustainability.
The production of indicators on the monitoring of tourism activity in the Algarve in a broad sense, namely in terms of sustainability indicators, and with geographical disaggregation at the level of councils, will be a fundamental instrument for the definition of local policies and measures that seek to respond to integrated and aligned with the regional aim of creating a cohesive and homogeneous sustainable tourist destination.
It is important not only to ensure that the Observatory's principles, objectives and action plans are linked to information needs to support the decision-making process of the Algarve's tourism and hotel industry, but also to ensure that the Observatory will produce a set of indicators not yet provided by others, at least in a temporal, spatial or other dimension, and which is considered relevant for industry decision-making.
In this sense, partnerships are an important pillar in the functioning models of tourism observatories, whether or not they are associated with that International Network. Examples of these two cases in Portugal are the Sustainable Tourism Observatory of Alentejo and the Tourism Observatory of Lisbon, respectively.
Its existence, dynamics and interaction of its elements will allow a broad reflection on the nine areas of tourism sustainability that the Observatory should monitor which, according to the World Tourism Organization, will be articulated with the seasonality of tourism, employment, the benefits to destination level, governance, resident satisfaction, energy management, water management, liquid waste management and solid waste management.
In addition to these areas or themes, others may come to be considered relevant in the Algarve region, as a tourist destination par excellence: innovation, sustainable production and consumption, beach tourism and nature tourism, biodiversity and nature protection , cultural heritage, mobility, territorial planning or control of tourist development, visitor management, control of user intensity and territorial distribution, visitor satisfaction, well-being and behaviour, safety and adaptation to climate change.
The joint definition of the principles, objectives and action plans for the sustainability of tourism in the Algarve by all stakeholders of the region, as well as its practical implementation, will imply articulated work towards this common objective.
The collaboration between the Observatory and these stakeholders regional emerges as a fundamental element of this project, since, on the one hand, without all stakeholders use and value the information that will be regularly produced by the Observatory, it will not fulfill its mission in its entirety and, on the other hand, without everyone contributing, at least with some type of data on its activity, the Observatory will be limited in the its capacity to produce information that supports the decision-making of each of its users.
We therefore believe that this collaboration is a strategy win-win, so the creation of a platform of regional partners for the Observatory is an essential condition for the success of this project in the medium and long term, which the Algarve is sorely lacking.
Authors:
Joao Albino Silva
Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve
CinTurs – Research Center for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being
Luís Nobre Pereira
School of Management, Hospitality and Tourism of the University of Algarve
CinTurs – Research Center for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being
Jorge M. Andraz
Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve
CEFAGE (UAlg) – Center for Advanced Training in Management and Economics
Rui Nunes
Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve
Note: article published under the protocol between the Sul Informação and the Algarve Delegation of the Order of Economists
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