Dr Luigina Jessica Montano
About
My research project
Evaluation of Social and Environmental impacts of a Sustainable Tourism InterventionMy PhD is part of a cross-border Interreg EU funded project called EXPERIENCE. The project aims to reduce seasonality across the French-English Channel region through the introduction of sustainable, experiential tourism activities designed for the winter season. Building upon the growing trend in experiential tourism based on regional uniqueness, the project aims to identify and enhance each region’s cultural and natural assets in order to attract more visitors during off-peak season. An essential goal of the strategy however is to ensure a sustainable growth in winter tourism numbers without jeopardising the eco-systems and quality of life of the host communities. This €23.5m project will develop and test the strategy across six pilot regions: Brittany, Pas-de-Calais, Compiègne, Norfolk, Kent and Cornwall. My role as a researcher on this project is to conduct an evaluation of the social and environmental impacts to ensure the project creates long-lasting benefits in the host communities.
My PhD is part of a cross-border Interreg EU funded project called EXPERIENCE. The project aims to reduce seasonality across the French-English Channel region through the introduction of sustainable, experiential tourism activities designed for the winter season. Building upon the growing trend in experiential tourism based on regional uniqueness, the project aims to identify and enhance each region’s cultural and natural assets in order to attract more visitors during off-peak season. An essential goal of the strategy however is to ensure a sustainable growth in winter tourism numbers without jeopardising the eco-systems and quality of life of the host communities. This €23.5m project will develop and test the strategy across six pilot regions: Brittany, Pas-de-Calais, Compiègne, Norfolk, Kent and Cornwall. My role as a researcher on this project is to conduct an evaluation of the social and environmental impacts to ensure the project creates long-lasting benefits in the host communities.
Publications
This study explores the power of the story-based ‘Most Significant Change’ evaluation method to evidence the impacts of a complex sustainable tourism intervention implemented through the cross-border EU-INTERREG ‘EXPERIENCE’ project across six regions on the French-English Channel. The method provides a participatory evaluation framework to capture contextual changes by collecting and analysing personal stories of change considered significant by those directly affected. As intervention-driven changes are often unpredictable and non-linear, the method supports researchers in exploring and learning about unexpected or complex outcomes emerging from the stories. Findings highlight the effectiveness of this narrative approach in capturing complex, unforeseen changes that may not be quantifiable through pre-defined performance indicators. The study contributes to evaluating EU-funded regional development programmes in tourism. •Explore the power of ‘Most Significant Change’ technique as a story-based evaluation tool.•The method boosts ownership of evaluation amongst project partners.•The study uncovers less-known impacts of tourism intervention on local communities.•Challenges faced by small local authorities in evaluating tourism interventions.
Tourism interventions, as tools for social change and preservation of natural and cultural assets are inherently complex. This study presents an improved method for the evaluation of complex tourism interventions. We argue that participatory methods can promote a culture of evaluation that supports partners throughout evidencing project impacts, eliminating negative attitudes to evaluation resulting from fear of being judged on performance. We demonstrate that Theory of Change (ToC) is an effective tool that allows organisations to actively co-create and own an evaluation strategy to ensure the delivery of project outcomes. We show how ToC can be applied as a useful process and impact evaluation tool. This paper represents a novel methodological application of ToC based on participatory approaches to evaluation to disseminate knowledge and to improve decision-making in the field of tourism interventions and tourism policy making.