Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Editors: Bill Bramwell (Sheffield Hallam University) and Bernard Lane (Visiting Research Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University)
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Volume: 11 Number: 2 Page: 181–203
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Measuring Sustainability in a Mass Tourist Destination: Pressures, Perceptions and Policy Responses in Torrevieja, Spain
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J. Fernando Vera Rebollo and Josep A. Ivars Baidal
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The debate on sustainable tourism development usually focuses on small-scale tourism practices, such as rural tourism or ecotourism, inappropriately referred to as 'alternative' tourism, judging by the
problems they start to create. Mature destinations in the Mediterranean are a classic example of inappropriate environmental practices and of disregard for the principles of sustainability, which had been
present in scientific discourse long before the 1992 Rio Summit. However, the restructuring processes in traditional destinations led to a more complex reality in which sustainability has become an inescapable
reference, both as a competitiveness factor and as a growing social demand. This paper uses an operative definition of sustainable tourism development that makes possible the effective application of its
principles. From this basis, a system of sustainability indicators is developed that can be applied to Torrevieja, a Spanish Mediterranean destination that is notable for the size of its tourism industry
and for its supply of holiday homes. The territorial and socioeconomic transformations that have resulted from Torrevieja´s tourism development, along with the new local policies in response to these
transformations, highlight both the contradictions and the chances of reconciling economic growth with sustainable development.
© Multilingual Matters 2003
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