The Use of Sustainable Tourism Performance Information: Assessing the Impact on Small Municipalities’ Policy-Making and Management

This study investigates how Sustainable Tourism Performance Measurement Systems (STPMS), such as the European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS), are used in small municipalities ’ policy-making and management. Grounded in Institutional Theory, the research explores how coercive,mimetic, and normative pressures, together with organisational factors, influence the instrumental or conceptual use of sustainability performance information. The study employs a qualitative, multi-case approach, drawing on four small coastal municipalities in Sardinia involved in the “Visit South Sardinia” (VSS) project. Based on 15 in-depth interviews, 5 stakeholder meetings, and documentary evidence, the findings reveal a two-phase trajectory: during the VSS project, institutional pressures, particularly normative ones, played a crucial role in initiating the instrumental use of ETIS. After the project's conclusion, although the normative pressures diminished, it continued to play a key role in influencing the development of a sustainability-oriented culture and, indirectly, in promoting a conceptual approach to sustainability data. Overall, the findings reveal a dynamic and evolving relationship between institutional and organisational factors. While institutional pressures initiate change, organisational factors emerged as the real discriminants for whether municipalities limited themselves to symbolic compliance, discontinued the use of indicators, or instead appropriated the sustainability conceptually as a performance goal.