Measuring circularity in the tourism sector: a step forward

The tourism industry is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors, thus contributing to ever-increasing sustainability-related impacts. Within this sector, the concept of circularity has been poorly analysed so far. This paper aims at providing some insight towards the measurement of circularity in tourism by means of a literature review. The results showed that the measurement of circularity can be complex and that life cycle-based indicators have started to be introduced. With regard to tourism, only one set of indicators, which partially overlap with the ones proposed by the EU monitoring framework towards Circular Economy, was identified. Those proposed within in the EU framework were found to be appropriate for the tourism industry; however, not all of them could be regarded as life cycle-based. A next step will be to analyse and integrate life cycle sustainability-based indicators with circularity ones.