An Environmental Management Accounting System for Sustainable Tourism Based on Business Intelligence

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts, and addresses the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities.” However, there is debate regarding how sustainability can be measured and reported in a dependable and comparable manner. Additionally, UNWTO released the “Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism” in December 2022, a conceptual framework designed to facilitate the collection and presentation of data on the economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism. The integration of SEEA into the SF-MST has significantly upgraded the ability of SF-MST, to provide information on the environmental dimension of tourism, since the system of environmental-economic accounting (SEEA) 2012 is the general international statistical standard for measuring the environment and its relationship with the economy. Alongside the development of the industry's tool capabilities, new opportunities are emerging for both the collection of environment-related data and its reliable processing and transformation into comparable data, from which sustainability statements (ESG and others) will be compiled, as well as provide UNWTO SF-MST with reliable information. This paper aims to contribute to the development of an environmental management accounting model applicable to the tourism industry by utilizing the opportunities offered by Industry 4.0. This model will provide management with reliable information and facilitate the compilation of reliable and comparable environmental reports, which will capture the environmental impacts of tourism on crucial environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, solid waste, wastewater, disruption of ecosystems and biodiversity, water, energy efficiency, beaches, ecosystem protection, environmental protection costs, environmental taxes, and will facilitate the implementation and use of environmental management accounting systems, using business intelligence techniques which will contribute to the analysis, evaluation, documentation, and transparency of their environmental performance.