Assessing tourism sustainability in European Union countries: A multi-directional benefit of the doubt composite indicator

Abstract

We propose a composite indicator for the assessment of tourism sustainability in European Union (EU) countries relatively to years 2019 and 2021. Our proposal is a revisitation of the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI), which is based on a uniform weighting scheme, by means of the Multi-Directional Benefit of the Doubt (MD-BoD) model, an innovative non-compensatory method able to derive a country-specific preference structure from the data. Thanks to the MD-BoD model, each pillar and elementary indicator receives a score that reflects the potential improvement of the country relatively to an empirical benchmark, therefore it is possible to objectively identify weak and strong dimensions of tourism sustainability before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, our composite indicator represents a valuable support for the design of policies aimed at increasing the resilience of the European tourism ecosystem. • The TTDI does not reflect the actual importance of tourism sustainability dimensions. • The MD-BoD model derives a country-specific preference structure from the data. • We revisit the uniform weighting scheme of the TTDI based on the MD-BoD model. • We focus on the 27 EU countries plus United Kingdom in years 2019 and 2021. • Our results objectively identify weak and strong dimensions of tourism sustainability.