New 'Love Footprint' Metric Introduced to Measure Tourism's Positive Impact at International Congress
TL;DR
The new Love Footprint metric gives destinations a competitive edge by quantifying positive visitor impacts beyond economic spending, enhancing sustainability credentials.
The Love Footprint metric systematically measures travelers' ethical and supportive contributions to destinations, similar to how CO₂ footprints are quantified.
This approach makes tourism more regenerative by ensuring visitors leave positive social, cultural, and environmental impacts on host communities worldwide.
A new Love Footprint metric now measures how travelers positively transform destinations, introduced at an international cultural tourism congress in Mexico.
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The XI International Scientific-Professional Congress on Cultural Tourism, hosted by Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco in Mexico on August 14-15, 2025, served as the platform for introducing innovative approaches to sustainable tourism measurement. Dr. Fernando Molina Pons presented the World Network of Solidarity, Smart, Regenerative and Circular Routes, while Dr. Ana Mafé García, president of the International Association Cultural Itinerary The Way of the Holy Grail in Europe:https://elcaminodelsantogrial.eu/, unveiled the pioneering 'Love Footprint in Destination' metric.
The concept received strong endorsement from the international scientific community for proposing a novel method to measure tourism's positive impact. Similar to how the CO₂ footprint quantifies environmental impact, the Love Footprint evaluates travelers' ethical, supportive, and transformative contributions to destinations. This metric aims to objectively quantify how visitors contribute to the social, cultural, and environmental well-being of host communities, moving beyond mere economic measurements.
The congress featured an exceptional Honorary Committee including Javier May Rodríguez, Governor of Tabasco, Mexico, and rectors from both Mexican and Spanish universities. The event, detailed on the official congress website:https://www.congresointernacionalturismoculturalcitc.com/, has established itself as a global benchmark over its eleven editions, bringing together researchers, managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers committed to sustainability and innovation in cultural tourism.
The Global Network of Solidarity, Smart, Regenerative, and Circular Routes proposes an itinerary model integrating heritage, sustainability, technological innovation, and solidarity. This vision transforms tourists into solidarity travelers capable of leaving positive marks on destinations. The implementation utilizes the fractal structure of the World Wide Web through the RegenEra Tur IA CUBE model, which already has support in DTI CUBES of Benidorm, Altea and La Nucía, scheduled for launch on September 12, and RUTA CUBES integrating initiatives like The Way of the Holy Grail from Masamagrell and the Biosilk Route in Buñol.
These CUBES serve as new levers for accelerating the transition toward regenerative and circular tourism, offering replicable architecture that connects destinations, routes, and communities with sustainable innovation. The positive reception at the congress indicates that tourism's future lies in integrating regenerative metrics and consolidating innovative governance models, positioning these contributions as international milestones that could transform 21st-century tourism practices.
Curated from 24-7 Press Release
