• Mexico and Colombia lead the destinations with the highest growth in air capacity to travel to the Spanish capital in 2023

  Mabrian, a leading tourist intelligence company, has analyzed for the FITUR travel trade fair – which is being held this week in Madrid – the growth of the main source markets that will travel the most to Madrid this 2023.   The study, carried out using real-time data on air capacity, shows how Latin America has enormous growth in demand this year to visit Spain’s capital. In fact, Mexico and Colombia top the list of international destinations that have increased their air capacity to travel to Madrid. In the case of Mexico, the growth  of air capacity to Madrid is 32.72% higher when compared to 2019 and 42.05% highger compared to last. For its part, Colombia has increased air capacity by 23.35% compared to 2019 and 34.96% when compared to 2022.   The other countries that have increased their air capacity to Madrid are, in descending order: Portugal, the United States, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Switzerland. In the case of the United States, interest grew by 33.84% compared to last year (you can read more about the profile of Americans traveling to Spain here in this recent Mabrian analysis), but decreased when compared to 2019. In the case of Switzerland, interest decreased compared to 2019 and is recovering compared to last year.   Countries that will visit Madrid the most in 2023 by ranking     In addition to the data on growth in air capacity, the origin destinations that will visit Madrid the most, in order, will be: the Spainish domestic market to Madrid, followed by Italy, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Mexico, Colombia and Swizterland.   In this ranking there are changes compared to 2019, when the United Kingdom was in fourth place followed by Germany, and Mexico was in last place. Thus, in 2019, the destinations that visited Madrid the most were: Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Portugal, Switzerland, Colombia and Mexico.

  When it comes to climate change the travel industry needs to change its approach to ‘summer holidays’ if it doesn’t want to get caught out in the cold   ‘Winter is coming’ is the Stark family’s moto in Game of Thrones and in the travel industry this might be the case when it comes to ‘summer holidays’ due to climate change.   This year saw heat records broken in most of the main European summer tourism destinations, in some cases by quite significant margins, and climate experts are predicting that many places popular with tourists soon will be scorching hot every summer.   What does this mean for a tourism industry largely based around summer peak season visitors? Could winter become the new summer or will tourists start visiting new destinations where the climate is more bearable? We spoke with six experts to find out more.   Carlos Cendra, Sales and Marketing Director at travel intelligence provider Mabrian says: “If anyone thinks that hotter weather is good news for beach traditional beach destinations then they should think again. During this summer’s heat wave in Europe we saw a clear drop in visitor satisfaction levels during the hottest weeks. The weather is one of the most important contextual factors for the tourism industry. Hundreds of vacational destinations in the Mediterranean and North Africa have traditionally based their tourism development on  favorable weather conditions. Now this is changing, and faster than we thought. This is probably going to change global travel trends within the next years, so we’d better analyze the effects of this on the expectations and preferences of travellers.”   Matthew Chapman, CTO of travel booking technology provider Vibe comments: “Online travel agents and other digital points of sale for travel should consider adding a filter that lets people search by average temperatures for the dates they are looking. Likewise hotels, experiences providers, perhaps even airlines and airports should all start considering populating their content with information about air conditioning, shaded areas, and so on – and make that content searchable and filterable in the booking process. More and more people will be concerned by such details at the search and booking stage.”   Alex Barros,  Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer from Beonprice, the revenue management & total profitabilty platform  for  for the hospitality sector, adds: “From a revenue management perspective for hoteliers this is a potentially enormous change as pricing for leisure travel has all been defined by the same summer peak season approach since the beginning of mass tourism in the 1960s. More research will be needed around how temperatures impact consumer demand. What is the ideal temperature for maximum pricing? Is it impacted by temporary volatility in temperatures, or just long-term averages? All of this will of course impact how hoteliers approach building and opening new properties too, not just location but temperature-controlled buildings and communal areas.”   Fabián Gonzalez, Co-Founder of Forward_MAD, a luxury tourism event taking place in Madrid from 5^th to 7^th October, says: “Luxury hotels and resorts, and luxury experiences generally, are better positioned to adapt to the challenges of climate change as they have the  resources to invest in what is needed – better climate controlled buildings, air conditioned transfers, and so on – and have more demanding clients in terms of sustainability expectations, who are prepared to pay for this. Contrast that with mass-market tourism providers with low-margins where such costs would be the difference between profit and loss. Additionally a shift towards tourists spreading their holidays out throughout the whole year, adapting to ‘wintering’ rather than ‘summering’, could suit many boutique and smaller luxury hotels with only a limited number of rooms – allowing them to fill them up in the normally quieter months. Not least as high spending travellers normally are more flexible in terms of vacation dates anyway.”    Bruno Martins, Senior Product Manager from the global hospitality technology provider Shiji Group comments: “Hotels and resorts in hotter locations will have to re-think their outdoor relaxation areas, perhaps putting an end to ‘outside’ pools or at the very least placing some kind of cover over the top – and making them more nighttime friendly too, including lifeguard services, or perhaps even charging for peak hours. Equally the spa centres should be rethought, positioning them more as a place to go and cool down – with less saunas and more ice baths. Golf courses are a popular draw for hot locations and they too will be impacted, quite heavily in fact as you can’t cover a whole golf course with screens and more watering will be required at a time when water becomes more scarce. Again nighttime, or at least early morning, tee-offs will be in greater demand. Technology is going to be the golden-thread throughout all of these changes, whether that be via apps that allow guests to schedule better those precious cool moments, pricing software that maximizes revenues based on temperature, or electronic wrist bands that allow guests access (or not!) to certain locations at certain times based on demand. Basically hotels can already start optimizing revenue for the activities based on time of day, where demand will increase and improve revenue management of rates.”   Janis Dzenis, Director of PR for the recently launched flight price comparison website WayAway also says: “For many US travellers going to Europe, summer is still all about the Mediterranean region and that might take a long while to change no matter how hot it becomes. Especially keeping in mind that for many US visitors to Europe this is a one-off, special trip – they aren’t basing their choice on previous experiences, but on what they saw in a movie or a friend told them. Any reality will take time to filter through. However in the short term all this recent hot weather around the world is driving eco-consciousness amongst travellers. So they´ll want to know what destinations and hotels are doing to fight this and those that don’t have a convincing answer will gradually lose out. This will also drive more demand for travellers to offset their carbon footprint too and this is a service we offer to our WayAway Plus subscribers, one that is proving very popular.”

 

• Incorporation of four people to enhance the company’s presence in different regions to offer solutions based on tourism intelligence.
• The team has grown by 20% since 2021, now forming a total of 27 people.
• Mabrian now has a multicultural team with 11 nationalities speaking 10 languages.

  Mabrian, the leading company in big data and tourism intelligence, has reinforced its business development team in recent months to accelerate its expansion in priority areas for the company such as Italy, France, Portugal, Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East and Latin America.   Mary Menchón, Chris Ramaciotti, Parisa Bakhtiari and Catalina Taltavull have joined the commercial team to bring tourism intelligence closer to the many different destinations and markets that want to promote better decision-making based on data and real-time information on trends, tourist satisfaction rates and other relevant indicators for them.   All of them have an international profile with experience in the tourism sector both in the field of tourism bodies and the hotel sector. The new joiners will be responsible for specific regions with a focus on interacting directly with the sector in each of their respective countries or regions to offer solutions based on tourism intelligence.   Mabrian’s current workforce has grown 20% in the last year and is more multicultural than ever. In total, it now has 27 people of 11 different nationalities, speaking 10 languages, distributed in 6 departments. The team is located between the offices in Menorca and Barcelona along with a current growing commitment to a hybrid work model, where face-to-face work coexists with remote work.   Santi Camps, Founder and CEO of Mabrian, celebrating that the team continues to grow to help Mabrian expand to more regions, reaching a total of 16 countries where the company currently has a presence, comments: “We want to officially welcome our new colleagues, who are now already part of the Mabrian family. The objective for all of us is clear: turn data and information into answers for our partners, enabling smarter decisions, whilst increasing the efficiency and sustainability of the sector”.  

• Chris Ramaciotti is the new Business Development Manager for Northern Europe. He has an international MBA and extensive experience in the luxury hotel sector. For Chris, “the technology developed by Mabrian is a central element when it comes to meeting the needs of a traveler since we accompany destinations and companies so that they can better understand their behavior and adapt their strategies”.
• While Parisa Bakhtiari is the new Business Development Manager for the Asia, the Middle East and Africa areas. A telecommunications engineer with a background in tourism, she has spent many years of her career focused on the travel industry. “I am passionate about exploring data in tourism, and with this passion I am dedicated to facilitating the incorporation of tourism intelligence in tourism policies and strategies, whilst helping the sector to take advantage of the opportunities of big data.”
• Mary Menchón is Mabrian’s Business Development Manager for Spain, Portugal and LATAM. Trained in tourism andcommunication, her work experience has focused on the tourism sector from different perspectives. “At Mabrian, a company that I have known since 2018, I know how to provide the vision of working and implementing the use of big data for DMO’s from scratch, since I myself experienced that process. For me, being able to help tourist destinations implement this tool and being able to continue contributing my part for the recovery of tourism is my greatest motivation”.
• And Catalina Taltavull is Mabrian’s new global public procurement coordinator. She has a mixed profile between aeronautical engineering, business development and extensive experience in the tourism and accommodation sector. Her functions at Mabrian are summed up in her own words: “We are facing the birth of a new service sector for tourism managers: Tourism Intelligence. The highly unstable context that the sector is facing makes administrations increasingly see the need to professionalize and have information to make better decisions. At Mabrian what we have is a solution developed and approved with more than five years of experience in the market, ready to provide an agile solution to the sector.”

  Mabrian has conducted a study of average hotel prices by room type for all the main Mediterranean destinations: overall prices are up on 2019, but not everywhere – and Greece is the big surprise, with increases up to 110% in five star rooms.   Carlos Cendra, Sales & Marketing Director at Mabrian comments:    “With few exceptions all the main Mediterranean destinations are seeing modest increases on average prices from 2019 across three, four and five star hotels.   “France is the main exception, with a 12% and 11.3% drop in prices for three and four star hotels respectively – but it’s worth pointing out that it is not all bad news, as its five star hotels are still the most expensive in the region at €419 per night (and up by 13.2% compared to 2019).   “Meanwhile Egypt’s prices are up strongly across all three categories, at 25%, 40.9% and 48.3%.  But Greece is the real star here, with four and five star hotels seeing a 62.7% and a 110% increase respectively.”  

 

• Data shows that the region is still on the way to recovering pre-pandemic values but also shows significant changes in terms of origin markets capacity and hotel prices

  Mabrian Technologies, a leading tourism intelligence company, has analyzed  data for the main destinations in the Middle East in view of its participation in the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) fair that is being held this week in Dubai.   To this end Mabrian has looked at connectivity data for the top nine destinations in the Middle East (Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jeddah, Medina, Riyadh, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Doha) and the main European destinations that have traditionally been markets of origin for these Middle Eastern cities (Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Austria, Italy, Greece and Switzerland).   The results show that the main destinations in the Middle East are having a challenging time recovering their connectivity volumes from  prior to the pandemic. Of the nine destinations analyzed, only two are at 2019 levels or have improved their connectivity: Cairo and Riyadh. Meanwhile Medina is the city that is furthest from its 2019 figures.     Right now Dubai, Doha, Jeddah and Riyadh are the best connected cities in the Middle East, adding between the four more than 38 million incoming places for the next three months – or 70% of all places scheduled for the nine cities analyzed (54.4 million places).   For its part, the main European markets of origin for destinations in the Middle East are the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. Among the European markets, only Austria shows better connectivity with the Middle East than in 2019 and both the United Kingdom and Germany are still 20% below 2019 figures.   Regarding accommodation, the analysis of the average prices of 1,141 hotels of all categories in these cities for the next month shows a relevant price increase. Prices have risenon average more than 20%, reaching increases of 80% in some specific cases. The cities with the most expensive accommodation are Medina, Dubai and Tel Aviv, where the average prices per night are between  €136 and €168.     Carlos Cendra, Sales & Marketing Director of Mabrian, comments "despite the fact that this study reveals that in the Middle East the rate of recovery is not the same as in other regions, the short-term prospects are good if the current dynamic continues – as we are seeing and commenting during this Arabian Travel Market. It must be taken into account that some of the important markets for this region, such as China, have not yet recovered their pre-pandemic demand.”

 

• Mabrian, in a new study based on tourism data and intelligence, compares the aviation carbon footprint of the main Mediterranean destinations for  2019 with 2022 
• CO2 emissions have been calculated – in total and per passenger – for incoming air connectivity into all airports in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece, including all  origins 
• The company presents its new carbon footprint indicator, which is added to its platform of tourism sustainability indices for destinations 

  Mabrian Technologies, a leading tourism data and intelligence company, has calculated, compared and analyzed the carbon footprint of vistors arriving by air for the main Mediterranean destinations for the years of 2019 and 2022. To do this, the emissions of CO2 due to incoming air connectivity have been calculated in countries such as Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece. The data for each country includes flights from any origin anywhere in the world to any airport within that country, and both the average carbon footprint per passenger as well as the total emissions emitted are calculated.   This study is published at the Sustainable Destinations Summit organized this week by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in Mallorca, where Mabrian will participate as a speaker.  During the event Mabrian will launch this new indicator of tourist sustainability that will be used from now on to calculate the global tourism sustainability impact of destinations. This new indicator joins the other tourism sustainability indices that Mabrian has been calculating and analyzing for destinations since launching last year.   For this study published today, the new indicator has analyzed the carbon footprint that will be generated by the arrival of visitors by air to the five most important holiday tourist destinations in Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece) between January and October 2022 – and is compared with the same period in 2019. For this calculation, the volume of scheduled incoming seats in this period for all destination airports in these countries is used as a criterion, calculating emissions with an estimate of occupied seats and the carbon footprint generated by the flights depending on the routes and the type of aircraft.   The conclusions reached after the analysis of these tourist data are:   

• In total, the destinations studied will emit between January and October this year 46.5 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere due to air connectivity. This represents a reduction of 19% compared to the same period in 2019.
• However, the reduction in incoming air seats for these destinations between January and October is only 7.23% compared to 2019 – which shows an improvement in CO2 efficiency.
• Meanwhile the average carbon footprint per passenger is reduced by 5% compared to 2019, going from an average of 120 kg/passenger to 114 kg/passenger.
• The reduction in intercontinental travel and the renewal of fleets with more fuel efficient models by airlines are favoring this positive evolution.

  By country, the results are as follows:   

• Spain is the destination that emits the most carbon footprint as it is the country that will receive the most visitors. However, its average carbon footprint per visitor is lower than that of France or Portugal.
• Greece is the country that shows the best efficiency in average CO2 per passenger received during 2022 with 97.72 kg/passenger, 14% below the average of the rest of the destinations. This is despite being the only destination that will increase its total emissions during 2022, since it also expects to receive more visitors: the total tonnes of CO2 emitted will increase by 4.6%.
• Italy and Portugal are the destinations that most manage to reduce their carbon footprint per passenger, reducing 1.8% and 9% respectively.
• France is the only one of the five countries analyzed that will increase emissions per passenger during 2022 compared to 2019, by 2.9%. However, it has the second highest reduction in total emissions, by 24%. This is only behind Italy, which reduces emissions by 28% compared to 2019.

  Carlos Cendra, Marketing & Sales Director at Mabrian Technologies, states that: "this indicator is a great tool to measure the environmental impact of the arrival of visitors to a destination by air and  it will allow destination managers to act in collaboration with the airlines. The dependence on remote markets, the occupation levels of flights and the type of aircraft offered by the companies are all relevant aspects to take into account in order to reduce the impact of the carbon footprint of a destination."  “As we will propose at the Sustainable Destinations Summit organized by the UNWTO and the Consell Insular de Mallorca, destinations must take the initiative and lead the change in model, but for this they need measurement tools such as those that we can offer them through our tourist intelligence and big data analysis.”    To speak with Mabrian contact Roman Townsend on [email protected]  

 

• Mabrian study detects that the impact of the war has affected trends in supply and demand for accommodation during Easter
• The data focuses on the evolution of flight search demand from the United Kingdom, one of the main European source markets, to Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Greece – plus the evolution of average hotel prices
• Portugal is the destination that seems to benefit the most from a shift in demand from the United Kingdom

  Mabrian Technologies, a tourism intelligence platform, has compiled data on tourism trends for the Easter period, noting the effect that Russia's war in Ukraine has had on supply and demand trends. This data suggests that the conflict and instability in Eastern Europe have led to an increased demand to spend Easter Week in countries such as Spain and Portugal.   The data focuses on the evolution of demand from the United Kingdom, one of the main outbound European markets. It looks at data for searches made between February 11 and March 8 of this year for flights from the UK to Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Greece to travel between April 11 and May 1.   This evolution of flight searches (based on daily averages) from the United Kingdom was then broken down into data from the 13 days before the invasion (from February 11 to 23) and the 13 days after (from February 24 to March 8). The results are:  

• Following the outbreak, flight searches and spontaneous demand from the United Kingdom grew by 13.2% for Portugal and 12.7% for Spain, while it fell -10.45% for Turkey and -8.15% for Greece.
• Searches for flights from the UK to these four destinations fell sharply overall in the days after the war broke out by between 30% and 40%. However, search volumes for Spain and Portugal recovered within 5-6 days, while Turkey and Greece had not recovered volumes 13 days later.

  Regarding hotel price data, the prices for a standard room for one night were compared for stays between April 11 and May 1, 2022 with 2019 (when Easter was from May 15 to 28 April). The results were the following:    

• The average prices of accommodation in Spain and Portugal grew for Easter in all categories.
• Portugal is the country where prices rise the most with +15% in 3-star hotels, +6% in 4-star hotels and +17% in 5-star hotels. Spain follows with +14%, +4% and +9% respectively.
• In Turkey, the average prices of 3- and 4-star hotels fell, -4% and -3% respectively. These categories are those most frequented by Russian clientele. However, 5-star hotels are up 27%.
• In Greece, the average price of 3-star hotels fell by 9%, while 4- and 5-star hotels rose by 8% and 20%, respectively.
• In general, in Spain average hotel prices are more than 20% above the average of the destinations analyzed and 15% above the average prices of Portugal, its immediate competitor in terms of prices.
• Portugal is the destination that seems to feel the most the effect of a shift in tourist demand from the United Kingdom to Western European destinations, since it is the one that has grown the most in hotel searches and prices.

  Carlos Cendra, director of Marketing and Sales at Mabrian, states that “knowing how the Russian conflict has affected the Easter period in the short term allows the rest of the countries and tourist destinations to know what the trend will be if the conflict continues. These collected data are an example of the tourist intelligence that we share with our clients with the aim of accompanying them in better decision-making, based on real information to adjust their next marketing actions. In this case, that means that Spain and Portugal can confidently focus on continuing to invest to attract European travelers for the high demand period of Easter”.

  Mabrian Technologies highlights in a graph the countries that would be most affected in tourism terms by a prolonged Russian conflict with Ukrainian   Mabrian Technologies, a tourism intelligence platform, has developed a map showing the top 20 countries that depend most on Russian tourism, from the point of view of air connectivity.   These countries would see their tourism sector affected in the coming months if the crisis between Russian and Ukraine lengthens, given that an effect is expected in all of Europe.   This data have been extracted based on air capacity and the number of seats on scheduled flights from Russia for the next six months (staring February 24).   As the graph shows, the country with the most scheduled flights and seats from Russia is Turkey, with nearly 2 million scheduled tickets for the next six months. It is followed by Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan. The top 10 destinations dependent on Russian travelers also includes countries such as Germany, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, whilst Spain is in aat 18th place.   "A new instability puts Europe's tourism recovery at risk when it seemed that we had overcome the crisis caused by Covid19. This is just another example that the only constant is instability and that destinations and tourism companies must have up-to-date information to analyze and act quickly to threats and opportunities” says Carlos Cendra, Director of Sales and Marketing at Mabrian.    “Turkey and Greece are two important tourist destinations in southern Europe and, at the same time, are among the most dependent on the Russian market. It is possible that these, in the coming weeks, will have to increase their efforts to attract tourists from other markets, demonstrate greater competition and lower prices to counteract a possible decrease in tourism from Russia.” 

  Mabrian publishes data comparing vaccination rates with the evolution of air capacity for summer 2022 in Europe’s top outbound source markets.   Air capacity for Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece this summer has returned to 2019 levels – with France the only exception but still at almost double 2021 rates.   As the most recent pandemic wave recedes Mabrian Technologies – the leading provider of data analysis and tourism intelligence globally – has published a study about how Omicron’s pushing up vaccine rates and the number of people who have temporary immunity after infection will positively impact arrivals in the main European holiday destinations this summer.   The Mabrian analysis includes a series of graphs (see attached) that illustrate the relationship between Omicron, vaccination rates and the outbound air capacity of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Italy towards their most popular international holiday destinations.   Looking at the 1st May to 30th October period for 2022, Portugal and Greece are already at +1% and +2% respectively of their 2019 air capacity.  Meanwhile Spain and Italy are only down by 1% and 2% respectively.   France is the only exception at minus 19% compared to 2019, but still reaches an absolute figure almost doubt that of 2021.       Carlos Cendra, Director of Sales & Marketing at Mabrian, comments:   “How could it be possible that something as nasty as Omicron has accelerated the recovery of tourism?   “Essentially Omicron pushed many more people to become fully vaccinated and our research shows that all the main outbound markets for European holidays have seen quite significant jumps in vaccination rates during that time. At the same time, many more people have now been infected than before, or have had their third dose, giving them temporary confidence that they can travel.   “Therefore, it would be quite hard to argue that, right now at least looking forward to the summer season, we’d have been better off without Omicron.   “What’s the evidence for this driving a recovery in tourism though you might ask? After all, at first glance the capacity figures fall sharply around the time of Omicron, despite vaccinations going up?   “Well when you consider that in the winter months capacity always falls substantially for seasonal destinations such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France, then actually in recent months the capacity evolution hasn’t varied from a ’normal’ years. In other words, Omicron didn’t impact them.   “Perhaps this will be an eternal debate amongst academics as to Omicron’s impact on the tourism economy, and evidently without the vaccines then Omicron would have been a terrible health tragedy for the whole world.   “But one thing is for sure: based on current scheduled capacity, inbound international arrivals the main European destinations are essentially back up to 2019 levels. This is simply fantastic news, unthinkable only a few months ago.   “Better news still is the fact that there is no indication that the demand for domestic travel is falling across Europe, meaning that overall destinations could see themselves entering into overall visitors figures and occupancy rates higher than before the pandemic.”   Mabrian believes that these insights are very important for any destination out there considering where to invest their marketing budgets right now: high vaccination markets should clearly be the priority as the link between vaccines and recovery is undoubtable.   Meanwhile for those in parts of the world where this might be hard to do — ie. where all realistic source markets have low levels of vaccination still — Mabrian believes that destinations can take some comfort from the fact over the longer term increased vaccination rates will drive the recovery for their destination.

  What are the six indices that Mabrian’s Sustainability Dashboard measures?  

Why sustainability will be the key to reactivating tourism (and how we measure it) : the six factors that you need to know about the sustainability of a destination.

  At such a crucial moment for tourism, where the sector has had to abruptly reset itself, it is time to think about how we want to recover and how we want to redesign the industry.   At Mabrian we believe without a doubt that information and data are essential to rebuild tourism from a solid foundation and position the industry as a sustainable economic model.   That is why we have created a tourism sustainability dashboard that measures the different parameters of sustainability in a destination to rebuild a better, more sustainable, more respectful and more responsible tourism sector. Not only with regard to the environment, but also with the local population and  economy of each destination.   This dashboard, which Mabrian makes available to our clients and partners, measures the sustainability status of a specific destination and compares it with other destinations. Through the measurement and analysis of six sustainability indices, it offers a corroborated and stable criterion that measures and monitors various structural, economic and social aspects that arise from the tourism sustainability of a destination.  

1. The distribution of tourist income:

  One of the basic aspects for tourism sustainability in a destination is that the economy and the local community see their quality of life improved thanks to tourism. It is essential that tourist spending generated by visitors reaches all levels of local society and has repercussions on their well-being.   This index measures the level of spending that tourists make in a specific place and the distribution of this income among the different types of establishments there are, with special attention to businesses with an impact on the local economy. This makes it possible to measure the economic impact that tourism has on businesses and the local economies of a specific destination.  

2. The concentration of tourist offering:

  The saturation or high concentration of the tourist offering in a small part of a territory supposes an imbalance. It contributes to differences in the development of one place with respect to another in the same territory and to economic polarization. That is why a destination with a homogeneous distribution of its tourist offering avoids this type of situation and contributes to a more equitable distribution of pressure and development.   This index measures tourist pressure according to the concentration of hotel and non-hotel accommodation infrastructure, and the concentration of activity in each location. It also calculates the density of the accommodation offering and the tourist influx in the area. The greater the dispersion, the lower the concentration of human pressure in the territory.  

3. The perception of tourism sustainability:

  What do visitors think about sustainability in the destination? Their perception of the sustainability actions and policies of a place is a key aspect for the image of the destination, for its profitability and also for the stability of the destination in the future, compared to other tourist destinations.   This index is obtained through the analysis of the mentions shared on social networks and measures the perception of visitors regarding aspects related to sustainability. To measure this perception, Artificial Intelligence processes based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques are used to identify concepts and the sentiment linked to them, in large volumes of texts.  

4. Motivational diversification:

  A destination that is not dependent on specific demand niches (such as sun and the beach) is a destination with a more sustainable, long-lasting and balanced tourism model. When tourism activity is concentrated around a few specific niches, an imbalance and inequality are created in the development of the tourism sector and in the local economy.   This index measures the dependence of tourist activity in a destination with respect to niches and specific segments of demand. The motivations and interests that visitors have when traveling to the destination are analyzed, expressed in online comments, preferences about accommodation and average stay. The more homogeneous the distribution of interests and profiles of visitors to the destination, the better the index score.  

5. Dependence on markets of origin:

  A destination that has little reliance on specific source markets, especially geographically distant markets, reflects a more sustainable tourism sector. When a destination depends on specific markets, specifically distant ones, it creates dependence on tour operators and intermediaries. This reduces the decision-making capacity and independence of destination managers and tourism companies. In addition, the CO2 per visitor cost from far away destinations is much higher. Such factors can make a destination less sustainable.   This index measures the dependence of tourism in a destination with respect to specific markets of origin, analyzing indicators of air and accommodation demand, as well as the geographical distance between the issuing market and the tourist destination.  

6. Seasonality:

  Less seasonal destinations offer a more positive impact on local economies through greater employment stability. Likewise, peaks of excessive human pressure are avoided, which cause a high impact on the lives of residents and cause saturation, penalizing visitor satisfaction.   This index measures the dependence of tourist activity in the destination with respect to specific periods of time or seasons of the year. To do this, air traffic, hotel demand and in-destination spend are cross-analyzed.   Based on the analysis of these six indicators of sustainability in a destination we gain the bigger Global Tourism Sustainability Index. This indicator results from the joint assessment of the aforementioned indices, weighted according to their importance, in addition to the other general indicators of the destination, such as the global tourist perception index, the security perception index, the climate perception index, the hotel satisfaction index and the satisfaction index for tourist products. This global indicator also allows general monitoring of the evolution of the destination, as well as comparison with other destinations.   In addition, the dashboard allows the destination to incorporate its own sources available to complement the monitoring of sustainability indicators and have an even broader vision. A clear example can be indicators that measure environmental performance in the destination, since these  are not measured in a homogeneous way in all destinations and therefore a destination’s own sources are necessary in each case.   With Mabrian’s sustainability dashboard, destinations can finally make better decisions to create adequate plans and strategies for the sustainable transformation of their destination and measure the results of their actions.   In the definition of these indicators we have had the advice and collaboration of Ético, a consultant specializing in tourism sustainability, that has contributed its experience in the definition of sustainable destinations and the sustainable development objectives of the United Nations.