Tourism has a diverse impact on local communities across the U.S., and a novel tool developed by Penn State researchers aims to simplify the measurement of these effects. Their study, published in Tourism Economics, introduces a sustainability index designed to evaluate how tourism influences counties through various factors related to economic, social, and environmental well-being.
The findings reveal significant variation among counties that heavily depend on tourism, highlighting their differing abilities to manage local resources effectively. Notably, none of the destinations excelled across all evaluated dimensions of sustainability.