Sustainable tourism evaluation using a composite indicator with different compensatory levels

Abstract

The use of composite indicators for the evaluation of sustainable tourism is an option widely used in the literature. Among the works proposed, two major contrasting approaches can be distinguished, differentiated by the degree of compensation allowed between the indicators of the starting system. On the one hand, there are synthetic indicators with additive or multiplicative aggregation where a compensation between the base indicators is admitted. On the other hand, there exist composite indicators with multi-criteria aggregation where compensation between indicators is not permitted. In this study a composite indicator is suggested that combines both approaches by performing an aggregation with different levels of compensation in different phases. This depends on the structure given to the starting system, combining different aggregation methods. Methodologically, additive aggregation at the most basic levels is applied, using weights according to the amount of information provided by each indicator, enabling a total compensation at this stage. Aggregation at the higher levels of the system is performed using a non-compensatory aggregation by means of the Borda-Condorcet method, whose cardinality allows the improvement of other non-compensatory proposals. To show the potential of the proposed indicator, an empirical study is presented to evaluate sustainable tourism in the tourist destinations with the highest demand in Andalusia (Spain).