Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman Assessing progress of tourism sustainability: Developing and validating sustainability indicators Atsbha Gebreegziabher Asmelash a,b,∗ , Satinder Kumar c a Heritage Conservation, Mekelle University, Ethiopia b Punjabi University, India c School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala, India ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Indicators Sustainability Assessment Validation Tourism development ABSTRACT Thisstudyaimsatdevelopingandtestingcomprehensivesetofindicatorsthatwouldhelptoconductmeaningful assessment of a progress towards sustainable tourism development. Using three-round Delphi Method, partici- pants were requested to evaluate the initial list of indicators based on 6 internationally accepted indicator selection criteria. The unidimentionality, multivariate normality, multicollinearity, construct reliability, con- vergent validity, discriminant validity and construct validity were assessed using diferent tests including Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Among 158 candidate indicators, only 53 were retained, which were found to be free from the problem of multicollinearity (5.466E-04) and have good internal consistency (0.963), convergent validity (AVE>0.5, CR > 0.9 and SRW>0.71), discriminant validity(AVE > r2)andconstructvalidity(P=0.06,RMSEA=0.071,GFI=0.895,CFI=0.952,TLI=0.941, NFI=0.910, Chisquare/df=2.016). Therefore, it is recommended that broad-based participation of key sta- keholders is highly important to develop good indicators that would help to make informed decision on tourism industry. 1. Introduction The concept “sustainable development” lacks mutually accepted defnition (Murray et al., 2003,p.76). Bell and Morse (2008) and Tsaur and Wang (2007) argue that the origin of the term sustainability was closely associated with maintenance of environmental quality. As noted in the work of Vehbi (2012:103), sustainability as a concept stands for “long term economic, environmental and community health”. It is sometimes considered as immeasurable goal and unachievable objec- tive and its application as an achievable and practical objective for the tourism industry is still immature (Ko, 2005; Viljoen, 2007). Some conventional methods of assessing tourism sustainability failed to achieve dependable results (Huang, 2011). To fll this gap, considerable attempts were made to develop relatively comprehensive and logical assessment methodologies (Guijt & Moiseev, 2001; International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), 1997; Foirito, ND; Cernat & Gourdon, 2012; Reihanian, Hin, Kahrom, & Mahmood, 2015; Huang, 2011; Ap & Crompton, 1998; World Tourism Organization (WTO), 2004; Vehbi, 2012; Ko, 2001, 2005; Prescott- Allen, 1996; Bell & Morse, 2008; Guijt & Moiseev, 2001; Dupeyras & MacCallum, 2013). There are some important reasons calling for an urgent assessment of tourism sustainability. The fragile ecological settings and cultural sensitiveness of attraction sites call for consistent monitoring and eva- luation of tourism impacts. In addition to this, the dynamic, unstable and unpredictable natures of the industry urge to conduct a consistent assessment and monitoring of a progress towards sustainable tourism development. Among many other assessment tools, sustainability in- dicators are believed to be relatively reliable, clear, simple and fexible that entertains both qualitative and quantitative data (Schianetz, Kavanagh, & Lockington, 2007). The application of indicators for practical assessment of tourism sustainability is still in its immaturity stage (Amiryan, 2013; Ko, 2001; 2005; Viljoen, 2007; Choi & Sirakaya, 2005). Ko (2005) shares that the application of systematic appraisal of sustainability in tourism context is very rare case. He found most stu- dies dealing with such issue to be merely descriptive, subjective and heavily reliant on qualitative data. Howmanyindicatorsarequiteenoughtoassessthesustainabilityof tourism remained obscure (Cernat & Gourdon, 2012). For WTO (2004), 12 to 24 indicators are accepted to be optimal while Sors (2001) argues that 20 to 50 indicators are quite enough. No matter how many in- dicators to be used, broad-based participation of key stakeholders https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.09.020 Received 11 April 2018; Received in revised form 26 September 2018; Accepted 28 September 2018 ∗ Corresponding author. Heritage Conservation, Mekelle University, Ethiopia. E-mail addresses: atsbita12@gmail.com, atsbha.gebreegziabher@mu.edu.et (A.G. Asmelash), kumarsatinder1981@gmail.com (S. Kumar). Tourism Management 71 (2019) 67–83 0261-5177/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T