Researchers at Penn State and West Virginia University have built a first-of-its-kind tool to measure whether rural tourism is actually sustainable — tracking housing, crime, poverty, and air quality across counties over a decade.
A research team from Penn State and West Virginia University Extension has developed a new composite index designed to systematically track whether tourism in rural U.S. counties is truly sustainable — a question that, until now, has lacked a consistent, large-scale answer.
The study, published in the journal Tourism Economics, uses publicly available data to measure the economic, social and environmental well-being of tourism-dependent counties over a 10-year span from 2009 to 2019. Rather than relying on expensive local surveys or one-off case studies, the researchers pulled from sources including U.S. Census data, environmental monitoring records, crime statistics and public health figures to build what they call a sustainable tourism index (STI).
How the Index Works
The index evaluates counties across six specific measures: the share of household income spent on housing, poverty rates, violent crime rates, life expectancy, air pollution levels and the presence of pollution sites. By calculating how each of these indicators shifted over the study period, the researchers were able to produce a dynamic picture of sustainability — one that captures change over time rather than offering only a snapshot.
That longitudinal dimension is central to the tool’s value, according to the team.
“In the United States, these questions are especially important because there has been no consistent, longitudinal way to measure whether tourism development is actually sustainable across places and over time,” lead author Luyi Han, an assistant professor in regional and agricultural economics in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, said in a news release. “Much of the existing work relies on local surveys or case studies, which can provide valuable insights but are costly, difficult to repeat and hard to compare across destinations.”
What the Data Revealed
Across the counties studied, the findings painted a mixed picture. On the positive side, poverty rates declined on average and air quality improved over the decade — signs of some economic and environmental progress. However, housing affordability remained a persistent concern, pollution rose in a number of areas, and violent crime increased sharply across many recreation-dependent counties.
Geographic patterns also emerged clearly. Higher-performing counties were concentrated in the Mountain West, Pacific Northwest and Alaska, though even those regions grappled with affordability pressures. The variation reinforces a core finding of the study: no single destination performed well on every dimension of sustainability, and no universal playbook exists for managing tourism’s effects.
Han was direct about what that means for policy.
“Sustainability shouldn’t be treated as a branding exercise alone: investments in housing, public safety, environmental protection and community well-being may also strengthen a destination’s long-term economic resilience,” Han said. “More broadly, the findings show that there is no one-size-fits-all model of sustainable tourism. Local conditions matter, and effective strategies need to be tailored to the specific strengths and vulnerabilities of each community.”
Why It Matters for Communities
Co-author Stephan Goetz, a professor of agricultural and regional economics at Penn State and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, emphasized that the stakes are high as more rural communities turn to tourism as an economic development strategy.
“For example, local residents ideally will also benefit from tourist dollars, and any recreational activity should not come at the expense of the natural environment when that is what attracts tourists in the first place” Goetz said in the news release. “This indicator is designed to help address these concerns.”
The researchers also uncovered a connection between pre-pandemic sustainability performance and COVID-19 resilience. Counties that scored better on the index before 2020 tended to experience smaller employment losses in the tourism sector and bounced back more robustly afterward, noted Han. This suggests “that sustainability may also contribute to resilience during major shocks” — a finding with real implications for communities still weighing long-term economic strategies.
Practical Applications for Decision-Makers
Beyond generating academic insights, the team designed the index to be a practical decision-making tool.
“For destination managers and local governments, the index offers a way to establish a sustainability baseline, compare performance with similar destinations, and track change over time,” Han added. “It can help identify where tourism is creating uneven outcomes — for example, where economic gains may be accompanied by rising housing pressures or worsening social conditions — and support more targeted policy responses.”
Among the policy levers the researchers flagged: inclusionary zoning and dedicated tourism tax revenues to address housing affordability, and targeted public safety strategies to tackle the unique crime-related challenges that tourism communities face.
For students studying environmental policy, regional economics, public health or urban planning, the research offers a concrete example of how data-driven frameworks can cut through the complexity of real-world community development. The index demonstrates that sustainability is not a single metric but a multi-dimensional balancing act — one that can now be tracked, compared and acted upon at scale.
The study also included co-authors Daniel Eades and Doug Arbogast from West Virginia University.
Source: Pennsylvania State University