Measuring Tourism’s Impact

Hosted by the Institute for Tourism in Zagreb, Croatian Sustainable Tourism Observatory (CROSTO) oversees the systematic measurement and monitoring of sustainable tourism at the regional level and encourages the promotion of measurement and monitoring of sustainable tourism at the local level. The operations of the Observatory benefit from the breadth and depth of insights gathered on sustainable tourism practices over the years and has gained experience in monitoring sustainable tourism through the implementation of the European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS). In order to measure and monitor the development of sustainable tourism in Croatia, the main destination specific issue areas that the Observatory has started monitoring include local and tourist satisfaction with tourism, local economic benefits and employment, tourism seasonality, energy, water and waste control, and spatial development control. CROSTO has gained experience in monitoring sustainable tourism through the implementation of the European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) in pilot destinations such as Mali Lošinj, Split and Crikvenica. Of those three, Mali Lošinj received the ETIS Economic Value Achiever Award in April 2016. CROSTO has been able to incorporate its experiences with ETIS and aims at further expanding its efforts by promoting the application of ETIS among more local communities while simultaneously encouraging and fostering the establishment of more local tourism observatories for which CROSTO will serve as regional coordinator in the future.