Analyzing the real size of the tourism industry on the basis of an assessment of water consumption patterns

Daniel M. Gonzalez-Perez, José María Martín Martín, José Manuel Guaita Martínez and Andrés Morales Pachón

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 157, issue C

Abstract: Studies have shown that records from official hotel occupancy statistics underestimate the volume of tourists arriving in a territory since tourists staying in non-regulated establishments are not registered. The data from online platforms allow a more approximate estimate, however, they do not reflect the real volume of tourists arriving at a destination either. Therefore, it is difficult to know the real dimension of the tourism industry in a tourist destination. This generates problems of public planning and market analysis by companies. An innovative methodology is proposed to estimate the real size of the tourism industry through an assessment of water consumption patterns. An isolated system such as the Balearic Archipelago in Spain was selected to evaluate the proposed model. For this purpose, the availability of water in the territory, the different existing water sources and the volumes of water supplied have been analyzed. The water consumption linked to the different agents have been also studied. The findings indicate that overnight stays not recorded in the official statistics add up to 23%. This must be considered to determine the real impact of tourism on society and on the environment.

Keywords: Tourism industry; Water consumption; Online platforms; Accommodation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322010669
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:157:y:2023:i:c:s0148296322010669

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113601

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().