Towards Improved Event Evaluation and Decision Support: A Systems-Based Tool

There would appear to be little point in promoting specific events if social and environmental costs outweigh the economic benefits. In recognition of this, a number of tourism researchers have proposed and experimented with more all-encompassing (or holistic) approaches to event evaluation. A weakness of these approaches, however, is that most do not readily allow impacts over time and delays to be factored into the evaluation process. In this paper, ´system dynamics´ is proposed as the basis for a solution to this problem. An additional benefit of the recommended approach is that the events evaluation model can readily be implemented as a decision support system.