1. Tourism Watch
  2. Tourism in the 2030 Agenda
  3. Towards The Transformation of Tourism
  4. Measuring sustainable development instead of measuring tourism
ECPAT Deutschland
Tourism in the 2030 Agenda

Measuring sustainable development instead of measuring tourism

The success of tourism, also in so-called ‘development projects’, is measured by its own performance and not by its sustainability along the entire value chain and eventually its impact on local people’s quality of life and the improved well-being of local communities. This is reflected in the tourism-related indicators for SDGs 8 and 12 which have been introduced in the “Tier Classification for Global SDG Indicators” of 10 November 2016:

Target 8.9

  • 8.9.1 Tourism direct GDP as a proportion of total GDP and in growth rate
  • 8.9.2. Number of jobs in tourism industries as a proportion of total jobs and growth rate of jobs, by sex

Target 12.b

  • 12.b. 1 Number of sustainable tourisms strategies or policies and implemented action plans with agreed monitoring and evaluation tools

In view of the very challenging task of measuring progress on the SDGs, resorting to existing data and indicators is understandable. However, to measure the highly praised development impact of tourism, a much broader set of socio-economic indicators is needed. Especially the measuring of “tourism direct GDP as a proportion of total GDP and growth rate” is a misleading track. Sustainability in tourism needs to be measured against the ways in which tourism contributes to achieving the SDGs, not in limited economic figures.

Good measuring is not only about choosing the right indicators, but also about addressing all the effects, local and global ones. Indicators should be measured based on correct interpretations. Promoters of international tourism claim their work benefits one billion international tourists, which is a false deduction from the fact that there are one billion international arrivals. It ignores that a small, wealthy minority of the world population trav- els several times a year, with business travellers up to several times a month. It is esti- mated that less than ten percent of the world population have ever crossed an interna- tional border. The fact that there are five to six billion domestic trips could make domestic tourism a far more important sector for sustainable development.

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