Measuring societal value of tourism: A new approach

Sa？etak The aim of this study was the development of a tool-kit for determination of the societal value of tourism, applicable on national as well as on regional and community levels with emphasis on a deeper interaction between economic and social development and environmental protection of the country. We considered the platform of Triple-bottom-line (TBL) as a theoretical starting-point of the concept of sustainable development. For the purposes of compiling a relevant procedure we proposed to use the Leontief input–output model based on the symmetric input–output table (SIOT). The results of study has shown five key indicators, which describe economic, social and environmental phenomena, via interaction of which the value added of tourism comes to be created: the total value added created by tourism, total employment in tourism, cost savings of potential unemployment, quality of life of residents generated by tourism and environmental infrastructure of tourism. As a key indicator of economic effects of tourism, there was identified value added created by tourism, or the total value added created by tourism calculated to one resident. This indicator is constructed so that it captured not only direct but also indirect and induced effects of tourism via quantification of multiplier effects. The construction of aggregate indicators for the social and environmental areas is selected so that relevant impacts of tourism may be captured, and subsequently quantified and reflected into the final effect of tourism – into its societal value