Abstract
An analytical review of the literature on the effect of the Blue Flag eco-label on tourism demand reveals clear divergences. Certain free sources provide valuable panel data to study trends over time in Blue Flag awards to beaches, on one side, and the demand for accommodation in bathing season, on the other. These data also serve as a basis for the construction of correlation models, such as the simple approach tested here in a representative territory of sun&beach tourism, on the south and east coasts of Spain. As a result, these two variables follow a similar trend, and the Blue Flag seems to influence the inflows of both foreign and domestic tourists to that destination. Nonetheless, for the sake of consistency, factors other than Blue Flag should be considered, and the study period extended.
Keywords
blue flag, sun&beach tourism, tourist inflows, beach demand, destination competitiveness
DOI
10.5038/2770-7555.2.1.1014
Recommended Citation
Alarcon, J. (2022). Tourist accommodation demand vs. blue flag award: Review and a simple empirical approach to bivariate trends in the south-east of Spain. Journal of Mediterranean Tourism Research, 2(1), 58-74. https://www.doi.org/10.5038/2770-7555.2.1.1014
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