Samenvatting

European tourism destinations are confronted with a trend toward increased environmental responsible behaviour. This trend seeks to improve the quality of life within those destinations for residents and tourists equally. Relating this subject to the principle of sustainable development, tourism destination might improve in status and policy to ensure future prosperity. Quality labels assist during this process of quality improvement and promote those changes when the actual changes have been implemented. Tourism is a subject to public authority and involves several stakeholders from within a destination. For this reason, decision makers will need to base their measures on clearly structured arguments. However, existing research is limited. Clear and transparent information about QualityCoast could greatly improve confidence in the programme.
The purpose of this research is to clarify and illuminate the benefits to be obtained from eco/label/certification/award in general and from QualityCoast in particular. Hereby, the research draws on qualitative and quantitative collected data to describe a perception from various stakeholders in the programme and its member destination. In addition it offers recommendations that provide direction for destination for what to expect from the QualityCoast programme and how to maximize benefits from such programmes. Findings from the research can be used by tourism destination and its public authority to decide whether such a programme will meet its expectations.
The secondary research of this study outlines detailed information on eco label/certification/awards. It contains a summary of the benefits as perceived by the three stakeholder groups of public, private and civil society as well as a general description of sustainable development and its relation to Tourism and the European Union. The primary research consists of nine semi-structured interviews and two recording schedules with about 50 tourists analyzed in three case studies, QualityCoast, Torres Vedras and Noordwijk. The first case investigates on the characteristics of the programme and its internal perception of benefits. The cases of the member destinations of Torres Vedras in Portugal and Noordwijk in the Netherlands described an external perception of the benefits obtained by QualityCoast. Eventually the three perceptions were cross- validated in one chapter to generate an overview of consensual benefits.
As confirmed by the findings, no evidence of feasible, measurable benefits in terms of increases visitor numbers or annual turnover has been found in the running time of this study. The consensual perceived benefits of QualityCoast to tourism destination were described as a focus on strategic quality improvement and its promotion to visitors as well as inhabitants of a tourism destination. Also the findings confirmed that it provided a useful tool to identify a starting point for this improvement and to keep up with it in form of continuous improvement. Furthermore, QualityCoast was used as benchmarking tool amongst the international network, even though, comparison among destinations within the same nation state was deemed as more useful to a municipality. Finally, the promotional benefits of QualityCoast are considered as potentially very useful in reference to the logo usage, the
David S. Möllers
Academy of European Studies & Communication Management 5
flag and the awarding ceremony. A final recommendation to tourism destinations interested in the programme: QualityCoast seems to be most beneficial to validate actual achievements made and continue to improve those achievements. However, the brand recognition seems to be increasing but the communication tools offered by QualityCoast will need to be used actively by the awarded destination to maximize promotional value.