The Barcelona Tourism Observatory within the framework of tourism sustainability
In the new social, economic and environmental paradigm, sustainability has become the backbone of everyday life, so that it has become relevant in governmental and business actions, in which tourism activity has not been and it is not foreign to. Within the framework of the goals established by the 2030 Agenda at a global level, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been introduced transversally in tourism sustainability policies and analysis systems.
Systems to analyse tourism sustainability
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with the aim of progressing towards sustainable tourism, published in 2004 the guide Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism Destinations: A Guidebook (OMT, 2004). This guidebook aims to provide destinations with tools for developing indicator systems, which must inevitably incorporate social, environmental and economic aspects. Besides, the World Tourism Organisation International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO) has published, in 2022, a repository of tools and resources with the aim of guiding the indicators design and sources for the 11 isues considered as essential in order to monitor tourism sustainability.
Meanwhile, Destination Barcelona has been developing various systems of tourism sustainability indicators (SIT-DIBA and SIT-BCN) since 2013. It has also participated in other indicator systems that monitor the sustainability of many destinations (ETIS and GDS Index).
In order to measure the reconciliation of citizens' lives with the tourism activity, Destinació Barcelona also takes into account the perception of visitors and residents. For this reason, the Barcelona Tourism Observatory carries out an annual Survey of Tourist Profile and Habits in Destination Barcelona, which collects the visitors' opinions on different aspects of the destination, while the Barcelona Regional Council and the Barcelona City Council study the residents' perspective on the externalities of the tourism activity in the territory.
With these premises, taking into account SDG12b "to develop and to apply instruments to monitor the effects of sustainable development, with the aim of achieving sustainable tourism that generates jobs and promotes culture and local products" (Government of Spain, 2022), the OTB established as a strategic line of action the creation of an indicators system to measure the sustainability of tourism activity in Destination Barcelona. The creation of this system, which has been named the OTB Sustainable Tourism Indicators System (SITS - OTB), has been carried out after studying and analysing the state of play of the previous use of indicators in sustainable tourism in Destination Barcelona and it has allowed the observatory to be part of the network of INSTO observatories.