Commensurability and sustainability: Triple impact assessments of a tourism event

In this study, a model for measuring impacts of a tourist event from sustainability perspectives and in a common monetary metric is developed. The aim is to achieve commensurability. The proposed model is tested on a three-day music festival and the results demonstrate a possibility to produce a sustainability impact analysis in a uniform metric. Measured in monetary terms, socio-cultural impacts carry weight just as economic impacts do whereas environmental impacts have little importance for the total assessment. This illustrates how the low market value of emission rights make environmental concerns negligible from an economic perspective. Finally, issues related to scope of the assessment, commensurability and opportunity cost are discussed and possibilities for future studies are suggested.

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► The study demonstrates a possibility to produce a sustainability impact analysis in a uniform monetary metric.
► Measured in a monetary terms, socio-cultural impacts have a value almost equal to the direct economic impacts.
► The low market values of emission rights make environmental concerns negligible in an economic perspective.
► Issues related to scope of the assessment, commensurability and opportunity cost are important for the result.