Support to Spain’s tourism ecosystem: towards a more sustainable, resilient, and digital tourism

What is it about?

Spain has made significant progress in the area of tourism statistics, including at the regional level. However, previous experiences with developing a system of sustainable tourism indicators to support decision-making, have not had the desired effect, in part because of the lack of a well-established methodology supported by the official statistical system. Regions that have statistical capacity are hampered by the lack of defined, common metrics that are comparable and consistent with traditional tourism data. This lack of clarity diminishes the impact of benchmarking and forecasting, both over time and across geographic locations.

This project builds on this experience to develop a coherent system of indicators for measuring and monitoring tourism sustainability at the regional level to support destination management.

Pilot implementation of the proposed indicator pore system in the destinations of Andalusia, Catalonia, Navarre, and the Valencia region will help establish baseline data and build capacity. It aims to help destinations benchmark between destinations and compare progress to transform regional destinations and SMEs into data-driven organizations that follow sustainable development values.

The work is also based on national and international criteria frameworks to develop indicators and to improve evidence-based decision making. It will be implemented in line with the Spanish Recovery and Resilience Plan and taking into account the EU Tourism Dashboard and the EU Tourism Transformation Path. It will support the EU Green Deal, the EU climate framework, the 2030 Agenda development goals for sustainability, and the net-zero climate targets for 2050.

What do we do?

We support the OECD Tourism Committee Secretariat in the implementation of the project to provide guidance on improving and sharing tourism data, including the development and implementation of indicators to measure and monitor the sustainability of tourism in the Spanish regions of Andalusia, Catalonia, Navarre and the Valencian Community. We take over the entire professional supervision of the project.

• We conducted an extensive fact-finding process together with the four regions (questionnaires, interviews, workshops) and determined the status quo in the area of sustainability.
• Based on more than 2,000 indicators, we have developed an initial set of indicators and have stored them with various characteristics.
• We have conducted three multi-day workshops with the four regions and international experts to adapt the indicators to the needs of the regions.
• We develop a report and compilation guide for the established indicators.
• We support the OECD in the preparation of documents, papers and workshop concepts.