Local Value Creation in Tourism

Initial situation

Tourism is one of the most economically significant sectors worldwide and, thanks to its employment intensity and close interlinkage with other sectors such as agriculture, crafts or services, offers enormous potential for local value creation. Through the support of local businesses, creation of local employment opportunities or investment in infrastructure, tourism can be a central driver for improving living standards. However, a standardised, recognised methodology for calculating local value creation from travel to the Global South is currently lacking. Existing approaches are neither comparable nor scientifically sound.

At the same time, traveller demand for socially responsible offers is growing. Transparent reporting of the socio-economic impact of tourism products would both raise customer awareness and enable tour operators to further develop their offers in ways that enhance local value creation, thus gaining a competitive edge. On the other hand, destinations could better identify where and how local value creation can be increased.

Project objective

The aim of the project is to develop a sector-wide recognised methodology for calculating local value creation from travel. This will help increase the economic and social impact of tourism in destinations while strengthening the transparency and credibility of socially responsible travel offers. Through Futouris, forum anders reisen and the DRV, industry stakeholders will be actively involved to ensure broad adoption across the sector.

Core Activities

1.     Development of the Calculation Methodology

Existing national and international approaches to measuring the local value creation of travel are being analyzed and, in collaboration with tour operators and experts, further developed into a standardized, practice-oriented methodology. To ensure the broad applicability of this calculation method, the primary focus is on practical feasibility; a key challenge in this regard, for instance, lies in data availability. The objective is to enable tourism companies by utilizing the developed calculation methodology to capture and analyze the economic and social impact of all their travel offerings, thereby allowing them to derive and implement practical measures to enhance local value creation. To facilitate corporate application, practical indicators for determining local value creation are being developed through a co-creation process involving participating pilot companies.

For application within companies, practical indicators—by which local value creation can be determined—are being developed through a co-creation process involving the participating pilot companies.

2.     Piloting in destinations

The methodology will be tested and further refined with pilot companies and 1–3 partner destinations for application in internal processes (product development) as well as for external communication (awareness raising of sales and customers).

Criteria for selecting partner destinations:

• Destination with developmental relevance

• Destination with tourism relevance for the participating companies

• Existing local network of project partners 

3.     Sector-wide Transfer & Implementation

The developed methodology will be finalized based on the results of the pilot phase and subsequently published complete with its underlying rationale and the insights gained from the pilot phase. Accompanying this, practical recommendations for action will be provided, enabling tourism companies to target and increase the local value creation generated by the travel packages they offer.

All project materials will be disseminated to the industry by Futouris and its project partners forum anders reisen and DRV through industry events, webinars and social media channels. Furthermore, the project partners will ensure the usability of the results by making them accessible on their respective websites and actively promoting them among their association members.