ESPON TOURISM –a tool for the tourism of the future

Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors in Europe, and it has a very strong regional component – i.e. tourism is overwhelmingly the largest contributor to the gross domestic product of many single regions.

On the one hand, this ensures the ‘survival’ of regions that could not sustain their populations and their livelihoods through other economic activities. On the other hand, a high inflow of tourists into a region can lead to numerous problems, mainly related to social and environmental aspects.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic the world is facing, it is safe to say that tourism will change in the future. We will see for some time the reorientation of tourism as follows:

Relocalisation of tourism flows: tourist destinations geographically nearer to a tourist’s origin will gain importance and attractiveness. For Europe, this means that intra-EU tourism will gain vis-à-vis extra-EU tourism – in terms of both destinations and the origins of tourists.

Sustainable tourism: more sustainable forms of tourism will increase in terms of market share as mass tourism and overtourism become less important.

This implies changes to both the modes of transport used to reach destinations and the type of touristic activities carried out at destinations.

The ESPON TOURISM (Carrying Capacity Methodology for Tourism) targeted analysis – although having started before COVID-19 events – aims to address these issues to support tourist destinations measure their carrying capacities. The methodology being developed is based on a delicate balance between comprehensiveness and flexibility and can be applied to any type of destination.

The project thus consists of three interlinked phases:

the development of a methodology to assess the carrying capacity of any destination, including guidance material for the subsequent case studies;

the application of the methodology in the course of four case studies in three Slovenian destinations and one Slovenia–Italy cross-border destination;

the revision and improvement of the methodology based on the feedback gathered in the case studies.

The ESPON TOURISM targeted analysis project has been designed to meet stakeholder expectations (in this case Slovenian, Italian and Croatian stakeholders), but it will also produce a product that may be applied universally, all over Europe and the world. Its main output will be a comprehensive handbook guiding readers through the methodological steps of an assessment of the carrying capacity of any tourism destination accompanied by supporting visualisation tools. It will also include territorial evidence on the impact of tourism in the case study regions along with recommendations on managing tourism flows to ensure the sustainable development of a region.

The methodology will address the issue of carrying capacities for tourism as a multidimensional problem depicting an external influence on a territory, in particular, tourism intensity and concentration in territorial terms and in terms of time; tourism flows into and within the destination; and the consequences in terms of user conflicts, opportunity costs connected to tourism – depending on the territorial conditions of the destination – and economic, social and environmental factors.

State of play

Currently, three Slovenian (Bled, Divaca and Brežice) and one Slovenian–Italian cross-border case study (Nova Gorica– Goricia) are being conducted and first findings will be published this summer. The carrying capacity methodology will then be scrutinised based on the results of these case studies and refined. The project will be finalised by spring 2021.

"We expect from ESPON tourisma methodology that will be easy to use, adaptable to different destinations"

Carrying capacity is an important part of the sustainable development of tourism. Asan Association of many different municipalities on different development levels when we speak about tourism, we see different approaches to analyse carrying capacities for their destinations. That means, different kind of indicators, different approaches to data capture and different presentations of the results.

We expect from the ESPON tourism a methodology that will be easy touse, adaptable to different destinations, withnot only recommendations for data capture, but already ‘served’ data from reliable open data portals, which are always up to date.

We also expect the project to provide recommendations on the kind of policies municipalities should implement to balance the pressures and touse opportunities in tourism. This will also have a positive impact on local public budgets since so far municipalities have to engage and pay external experts for this kind of studies.

SašaKek, stakeholder