Irene Lane writes for Sustainable Brands about how Fáilte Ireland (Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority) has sought to answer the key questions: What is the economic value of sustainable tourism for businesses and communities? To do so it commissioned a pilot study based on Greenloons’ proprietary Return on Investment (ROI) for Sustainable Tourism model, whereby participants were asked to provide quantitative and qualitative data about their tourism business.
In Brief
- There was a higher ROI for accommodations versus tour companies that implemented sustainability into their businesses,
- Operational ROI remains negative for at least five years (aggregated for the study’s participants), however the investments made by these tourism businesses toward local communities, employees and customers more than made up for this.
- For both accommodations and guiding companies, Community ROI was most affected by the development of community engagement and internship programs as they served a dual purpose of educating the community about the tourism business’ ethos for sustainability and marketing to the region about the business’ unique product offering(s).
In Depth
- Read the original article on Sustainable Brands
- Follow Greenloons Founder Irene Lane on Twitter
- Learn more about Greenloons consulting services.
