Assessing the socio-economic impacts of tourism packages: a methodological proposition

Abstract

Purpose: The effects of tourism extend beyond purely economic considerations; they also have an impact on both the environment and people. Development of tools and procedures that foster consensus among practitioners and enable the measurement and benchmarking of impacts are required for tourism managers to be able to work on lowering and mitigating the sector’s effects, while enhancing the positive benefits. In this study a methodological proposition to assess the social impacts of tourism packages is presented. Aim and scope: This study adapts and tests for the first time a social evaluation technique, the Product Social Impact Assessment (PSIA) method, to assess the social implications of tourism products and services. It is iteratively tested on 9 tourism packages in Mediterranean Protected Areas. Numerous parties, including managers of protected areas and private tourism stakeholders, have engaged in this process at various stages, such as developing the packages or supplying the data required for the assessment. Conclusions: The methodology tested appears appropriate to quantify and qualify the social impacts of tourism packages and is valid for enhancing the social performance since positive progress between the two testing faces was registered. This study is a step towards standardizing the social assessment of tourism packages following a Life Cycle Assessment approach, and future developments are needed to make the approach proposed in the paper adequate to assess the social impacts of the upstream and downstream components of the system.