Strengths and weaknesses of the integration between science and policy in tourism planning

The challenge of sustainable tourism is represented by the ability of defining a framework of development in which environmental protection, cultural identity (in terms of historical, artistic, gastronomic and traditional aspects), sustainable production and consumption models are integrated with local economic context and requirements. A number of strategies and tools developed in several context may support the definition of an innovative sustainable tourism framework for developing policy and initiatives at local scale. Indeed, effective policy planning for sustainable tourism development has to be based on an analysis of actual and potential environmental, social and economic conditions and on the needs of local communities and enterprises. Furthermore, the results of local policies for development have to be monitored through time to assess impacts on the local environment and, where appropriate, to redefine policy and plan future steps to be taken in order to continuously improve the environmental and sustainability performance of the area. It is therefore essential to integrate participatory processes of development with an objective monitoring of the situation, identifying indicators suitable to measure and evaluate the temporal evolution of development policies and to assess the possibility of sustainable socio-economic development facilitated by the promotion of sustainable tourism products. The use of indicators for measuring sustainability of tourism addresses some important needs: (1) quantitative evalutation of current state of environmental, social and economic conditions in the destination; (2) the definition of measurable targets; (3) the possibility of comparing results through space (comparison with other destinations) and time (measure of evolution thruogh time of local situation – measure of achieved results); (4) communication of results to relevant actors (political decision makers, local stakeholders). This paper presents a case study referring to a participatory process for sustainable tourism development in a turist destination in Italy (the process of implementation of European Charter for Sustainable Development in protected Areas): the whole process is a good exemple of integration between science and policy because the definition of the strategy of development is the result of a three-stage analysis, based on the integration between objective data (collected and systematized in a diagnostic report), subjective data (coming from the analysis of the perception of 3 basic categories of stakeholders involved in tourism development: local community, tourism operators and tourists, surveyed through questionnaires, and from the topics of the focus groups) and strategic surveys with local and not local stakeholder (interviews and vision of future trend in a wider context). In the objective analysis, some existing sustainability indicators were applied to tourism sector (e.g. carrying capacity assessment and Ecological Footprint) and a new indicator was developed (the Sustainable Performance Index), to evaluate sustainability of the whole tourist system, in an overall perspective (including economic, environmental and social aspects). Final aim of this study is to define a way for understanding and communicating the results of the evaluation, to provide information that is effectively supporting for decision making processes at different scales (local administrators, tourism operators, tourists and visitors) and that can be easily understood by all the stakeholders involved in the process.