Sustainable Tourism around Ecosystem Services: Application to a Case in Costa Rica Using Multi-Criteria Methods

Abstract

Tourism is an activity that generates important benefits; in the case of Costa Rica, it focuses its activity on natural areas, using the different ecosystem services (ES) and obtaining economic and social benefits. However, its ecological value can diminish, making it necessary to implement methods to estimate its sustainability. This paper proposes an evaluation of tourism around ES by applying the MIVES method (Value Integrated Model for Sustainability Evaluation), based on the multi-attribute utility theory, which implies that it transforms different variables into a 0 to 1 relationship, where the closer it is to 1, the more sustainable it is. For this purpose, it considered a decision tree, integrating environmental, economic, and social requirements, 6 criteria, and 13 indicators. The method was applied to two sites, Golfito and Jimenez in Costa Rica. It considered the following stages: (i) literature review and expert consultation, (ii) decision tree, (iii) assignment of weights, (iv) sustainability indexes, and (v) sensitivity analysis. The most sustainable site is Jiménez, obtaining an overall index of 0.40 compared to 0.25 for Golfito. The economic and social requirements are the best evaluated, while the environmental requirement was the worst evaluated for both sites. The proposed methodology can be extrapolated to other natural areas.

Latin American research on ecotourism and Peru's contribution: A bibliometric overview

“…The diversity of these key terms underscores the multidimensional nature of the topic, which encompasses not only economic and tourism aspects but also environmental, social, and cultural aspects. This highlights the need for a holistic and collaborative approach in the management and promotion of ecotourism to ensure its long-term sustainability (Araya et al, 2023;Cuevas Islas & Rosas Baños, 2022;Salazar-Sepúlveda et al, 2022). In addition to identifying the most frequent keywords, the co-word analysis and map visualization allow us to identify several thematic areas in Latin American scientific production in ecotourism.…”

Introducing the Comprehensive Value Function for Sustainability Full-Spectrum Assessment

“…The good performance of MIVES in sustainability analysis and its ability to specifically adapt to each problem have allowed it to be applied in many other fields. These applications include advancements in Spanish sustainability codes and software [47][48][49], educational and development assessments such as school construction technologies and active learning strategies, R&D technology selection and advancing project management innovations [50][51][52][53][54], resource analyses for sustainable public fund allocation [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] or tourism [64], and promotion of industrial heritage assets [65]. Energy studies have explored sustainable power generation [66], biomass processing [67], and solar energy systems [68], while the machinery sector has seen MIVES applied to optimise designs and operational efficiencies in wind turbine systems [69,70], heat exchangers [71], and for enhancing waste utilisation in both educational facilities and civil engineering [72,73].…”

The Heritage Climate Index (HERCI): Development, Assessment and Application for Tourism Purposes in Geoheritage and Cultural Heritage Sites

“…From the aspect of tourism, climatology, natural hazards and environmental protection, the application and analysis of a large number of parameters often assigned a different weighting coefficient to evaluate the criteria, i.e., a hierarchy of priorities was carried out [37,38]. This type of procedure-multi-criteria analysis-considers various quantitative and qualitative criteria that need to be determined in order to find the best solution.…”