The economic revenues and the emergy costs of cruise tourism C. Paoli a , P. Vassallo a, * , G. Dapueto a , G. Fanciulli b , F. Massa a , S. Venturini b , P. Povero a a DISTAV, Universit a di Genova, Corso Europa 26, 16132 Genova, Italy b Area Marina Protetta “Portofino”, Viale Rainusso, 1, 16038 S. Margherita Ligure (Ge), Italy article info Article history: Received 22 February 2017 Received in revised form 3 July 2017 Accepted 15 August 2017 Available online 16 August 2017 Keywords: Emergy analysis Carrying capacity Ligurian Sea Tigullio Gulf Willingness to pay PES abstract Emergy analysis was applied to three municipalities (Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure and Rapallo) of the Liguria Region coast, where tourism and cruise tourism are thriving. The results were compared with traditional economic indices. The territorial assessment of the municipalities was analysed by comparing the environmental costs with the economic benefits, focusing on tourism and cruise tourism. Similarities and differences among the case studies emerged. The three economies resulted as being driven by the tertiary sector, but consequences from the different development strategies came to light. Portofino has developed an elite type of tourism with greater attention devoted to the environment. This is mirrored by a sort of safeguarding of tourism and natural resources and by the detriment of the productive sector's success, on the contrary, in Rapallo. Santa Margherita lies in a boundary condition. The cruise tourism sector was analysed in these contexts. The ecological and economic impacts of the cruise sector were revealed to be significant only in Portofino, being less than 1% in Rapallo and Santa Margherita Ligure. The load imposed on the local environment by cruise ship tourism was calculated, and Portofino showed a limited condition, while Santa Margherita Ligure and Rapallo exceeded the local carrying capacity. This is due to the different management approaches pursued: only in Portofino is the territory more able to absorb the impact, although the limit is currently reached. As a consequence it appears to be evident that such phenomena as cruise tourism, albeit economically promising in the short term, should be managed with a long-term perspective, integrating them into the local context and setting up strategies for impact reduction or mitigation. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Cruise tourism has experienced phenomenal growth in the last four decades, most of all in terms of passenger numbers, becoming a mobile version of their land-based tourism competitors (Lumsdon and Page, 2007). In the 1970s the average capacity of a cruise ship was 800 passengers, 30 years later it reached 1900 passengers and currently the main companies are investing in ships that can accommodate 6000 people (Stefanidaki and Lekakou, 2014). From 2003 to 2014 the demand for cruising worldwide increased from 12.0 to 21.6 million passengers, with 410 cruise ships and $37.1 billion in revenues (Sun et al., 2011; CLIA, 2014). Nowadays the revenues of cruise corporations represent a modest share of the total international tourism receipts, equal to 3%. Nonetheless, the sector is the fastest-growing segment in the travel industry, increasing at almost twice the rate of other land-based tourism sectors (Kester, 2002). In 2013 the European cruise ship market played a significant role in the global cruise scenario: 30% of the total passengers were Europeans, while the European industry engendered 31.2 million passenger visits to 250 European port cities, in both the Mediter- ranean and the Baltic Sea. This generated a significant impact on the European economy consisting of direct expenditure of V16.2 billion linked with the European cruise industry (almost 25% of which was due to crew and passenger spending) and 339,417 (CLIA, 2014) jobs generated. In more detail the Mediterranean European fleet is composed of 166 cruise ships carrying 3.86 million passengers, equal to over 20% of the total passengers, with a 10% increase from 1998 (Dwyer and Forsyth, 1998; CLIA, 2014; Stefanidaki and Lekakou, 2014). In this context Italian ports play a central role, with five ports (Civitavecchia, Venice, Naples, Genoa and Savona) included in the Mediterranean top ten for embarked, disembarked and visiting passengers, four of which are included in the major ports for revenue passengers and represent the country with greater direct expenditures in Europe (CLIA, 2014). * Corresponding author. E-mail address: paolo.vassallo@unige.it (P. Vassallo). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.08.130 0959-6526/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 1462e1478