Results of research conducted on the sustainability of tourism in Mdina will be released in the coming weeks, paving the way for a nationwide exercise.

The research was conducted by the Institute for Tourism Travel and Culture of the University of Malta as a pilot project before setting up an European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) in Malta.

ETIS was set up by the European Commission, which created a ‘toolkit’ and roped in 100 volunteer destinations to try it out. The first phase ran from July 2013 to April 2014, while the second is running from April 2014 till December 2014.

“Nowadays all tourist destinations are called to tackle social and cultural, economic and environmental key challenges. Being able to effectively measure their sustainable performances has become essential.

“Measuring these performances and monitoring its own results will make it possible to local authorities to: get improved data for informed policy decision making; establish an intelligent approach to tourism planning; identify areas that need improvement; prioritise action projects; manage risks effectively; and create benchmarks of performance,” the Commission said.

Sustainability has become a core issue in the tourism sector. According to the UNWTO, indicators allow decision-makers to reduce the possibility of making poor business decisions unconsciously.

We started with Mdina but the intention is to apply the system to Malta as a whole, as it has been accepted as one destination by the European Commission

There are 46 different indicators, grouped around five categories: management; economic; social; environmental; and cultural.

“We started with Mdina but the intention is to apply the system to Malta as a whole, as it has been accepted as one destination by the European Commission,” institute director Nadia Theuma explained.

However, this actually turned out to be a real challenge as there is considerably more information collected for Malta as a whole than for just Mdina.

“We want to analyse other zones too as they may have issues that are not reflected on a national basis,” Dr Theuma said.

“The important thing is that once we have the indicators, they will be used to direct policy – and they will be reviewed regularly to pick up trends.

“We don’t want to collect data just for the sake of it; this is not going to be a purely academic exercise.”