Gender perspectives in the use of tourism sustainability indicators for decision-making

Abstract

This study provides a gender perspective on the (mis)use of sustainability indicators to inform tourism policies. We surveyed 75 European staff at destination management organisations on their subjective and objective sustainability knowledge, their level of confidence in the usefulness of the data/indicators, their level of confidence in the reliability of the data/indicators and on the processing of the information. The results show that there are different attributes and underlying mechanisms associated with gender roles that determine the ways in which women and men use sustainable tourism indicators to inform their decisions. Women (versus men) have greater confidence in the reliability of data/indicators but are more demanding regarding their quality and are more cautious in their use for decision-making. When addressing sustainable tourism management, women tend to prefer comprehensive processing of information when making decisions, showing a more holistic attitude and being oriented towards reducing environmental risks Our study is a first attempt to raise any aspect of civil servants’ identity (class, country of birth, ability, age, sexuality, values…) as an issue of analysis in sustainable tourism policy-making.