A quantitative methodology for assessing sustainable tourism potentials

Abstract

Sustainable tourism potential is the measure of the ability and opportunity of material and nonmaterial elements to attract tourists to a destination that takes full account of its current and future socioeconomic and environmental impacts, while addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and the host communities. Thus, an effective way to developing sustainable tourism is a better identification of tourism potentials of different areas for accurate planning. Using a quantitative approach, this study identified the pull and push factors in assessing tourism potentials in Ghana, normalized the factors using scaled-item model and weight system assigned by tourists. It also acquired availability scores for each factor in five Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) in Ghana and used this to show the application of the model. The final output is the tourism potential index (TPI), which could be used for assessing sustainable tourism development at the micro and the macrolevels. The article concludes with a ranking of the selected MDAs according to their tourism potentials and substantiation of the scaled-item model to be implemented to ensure a sustainable tourism development of the MDAs. For the pull factors, the Effutu municipality with an index of 4.44 is ranked highest, followed in that order by Gomoa West district (4.26), Agona West municipality (4.00), Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam district (3.98), and Gomoa East district (3.9). For the TPI, which included the pull and the push factors, the Effutu municipality is still ranked highest with an index of 3.20. This is followed, in that order, by Gomoa West district (2.99), Ajumako-Enyan- Essiam (2.63), Gomoa East (2.59), and Agona West municipality (2.02), which lost the third position for the least position. Effutu municipality (3.20) with the highest TPI is 1.18 higher than the Agona West municipality (2.02) with the least TPI. It is suggested that examining the tourism potentials of areas based on the pull factors or attraction sites/facilities alone is inadequate as the tourism industry involves other sectors and push factors such as security and safety, socioeconomic, environment, and natural resources. � 2017 Cognizant, LLC.