How to use sustainability indicators for tourism planning: The case of rural tourism in Andalusia (Spain) Original Research Article

This paper proposes an indicators system to analyse the sustainability of tourist activity at rural destinations in countries with a consolidated tourism sector. The proposed system aims at providing tourist managers and policy-makers with information to better understand the transition to sustainability at specific destinations and to encourage them to carry out corresponding policy and management responses. To illustrate how indicators can be quantified, we create a practical guideline on how to use the statistical information available. Likewise, we suggest a method for obtaining sustainability indexes by aggregation that reduces the subjectivity associated with the composite indicator. This procedure is based on the combination of principal component analysis and distance to a reference point.