The aim of this paper is to examine the role of indicators in the transition to sustainability in tourism development and planning, identifying their main characteristics and summarising the challenges posed by their use in tourism development and in the research field. Indicators today constitute significant elements in sustainability programmes, but their use has been hampered by technical and conceptual difficulties. Furthermore, given that specific socio-spatial contexts and scales are highly influential in their application in the field, there is a need to identify the nature and characteristics of these indicators of sustainable tourism. After the in-depth development of a theoretical and phenomenological framework for indicators in tourism sector based on literature review, some interesting findings were identified. Indicators of sustainability have been widely adopted in tourism planning and management, and the indicator type (set or index) is selected depending on the situation under analysis and the purpose underpinning the study. In general, a set of indicators may prove more useful and accurate for assessing sustainability in one tourism destination, while an index may be better suited for comparing different spatial units. However, indicator effectiveness to achieve the ideals of sustainable tourism development is affected by the ambiguity in the definition of the concept of sustainable tourism and problems associated with data availability and baseline knowledge. The main challenge is to overcome strategic guidelines and political and theoretical proposals of indicators and achieve practical applications for the sustainable development of tourism. It is in this regard that innovations and knowledge transfer have been stressed, albeit that the nature of this knowledge remains the key.

We aimed to evaluate the impact of sustainable tourism indicators on destination competitiveness with reference to the European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS), a scheme funded by the European Commission to address the evidence gap in tourism policy making. To do this, we evaluate the absorptive capacity of destination management organisations (DMOs) to implement and use sustainable tourism indicators to make policy decisions. We provide evidence of how DMOs have acquired knowledge about the importance of sustainable tourism indicators through ETIS, and how they have assimilated it by developing their own systems based on the principles of ETIS. However, we find that the European Commission had unrealistic expectations that DMOs, or their policies, would be transformed as a result of the use of indicators, or that indicators would be exploited to improve tourism sustainability and competitiveness. We contribute to the study of policy science by showing how absorptive capacity can be used to analyse and evaluate policy interventions, despite being a linear rational approach to explaining a complex policy context.

This paper presents a project involving the design, application, and monitoring of tourism indicators for the sustainable management of local destinations. The aim is to assess the tourism management of destinations and to identify the main drivers of, and barriers to, sustainable management, through: a quantitative assessment based on indicator calculations to assess the degree of sustainability of the destination; and a qualitative assessment through in-depth interviews with the destinations’ managers to assess the performance of tourism management. Results reveal that in recent years the majority of destinations have defined strategic tourism plans; the provision of accessible tourist resources and products has increased; more tourists use public transport; policies to minimize light and noise have expanded; and more beaches and ports have been awarded the blue flag symbol. Despite these improvements, a general decrease in traditional economic variables is identified (e.g. spending per tourist, and average length of stay), as well as in certified accommodation (e.g. DGQA, EMAS, EU Ecolabel and Biosphere). Time constraints and limited human and technical resources are the main obstacles to the introduction of more long-term, sustainable planned measures. However, the research shows that improvements are achieved when local managers receive support from higher-level public bodies.