Blue washing the beach: The role and impact of Blue Flag certification at the Bulgarian Black Sea coast Thesis research Author: Supervisor: Ivelina Dimitrova Machiel Lamers January 2013 Summary In the past decades there has been a growing concern about the unsustainable nature of mass tourism development and this has been reflected in the demand for greener tourism products. Currently, tourism ecolabels are being utilized as tools by the tourism industry for protecting the environment as well as promoting sustainable tourism practices. Even though that tourism ecolabels are well accepted by the industry they are also suffering from lack of methods to ensure that they are not just a green wash. Moreover, they may be perceived as uncoordinated because of their broad proliferation varying from small scales to worldwide and from single activities to entire destinations. These issues have been discussed in the tourism literature but however the last is still unable to explain the actual contribution of tourism ecolabels to tourism product improvement. Addressing these knowledge gaps, the objective of this research is to explore the role and the impact of tourism ecolabels and to investigate the presumption that they promote sustainable tourism development. In this research the example of Blue Flag as important, internationally proliferated and broadly recognised tourism ecolabel has been chosen. Next to this, to fulfill the aim of this research the case of Bulgarian Black Sea has been adopted in order to estimate the extent to which Blue Flag has contributed to the actual environmental and socio-economic development on national level. 1 Table of contents List of tables ............................................................................................................................................... 4 List of figures and pictures ....................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................... 6 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1. Problem statement ........................................................................................................................... 7 1.2. Research objective .......................................................................................................................... 9 1.3. Research questions .......................................................................................................................... 9 1.4. Methodology .................................................................................................................................... 9 1.5. Outlining ......................................................................................................................................... 11 2. Conceptual framework ......................................................................................................... 13 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 13 2.2. Tourism ecolabels: theory and critics ............................................................................................ 14 2.2.1. Main actors in tourism ecolabels ............................................................................................ 14 2.2.2. Criticism of tourism ecolabels .................................................................................................. 15 2.3. The non-state market driven (NSMD) governance ....................................................................... 16 2.4. Legitimacy dynamics in non-state market driven governance ..................................................... 19 2.4.1. Types of external audience ...................................................................................................... 19 2.4.2. Types of legitimacy that external audience may give to NSMD systems ................................ 19 2.4.3. Recognition and durability ....................................................................................................... 22 2.5. The effectiveness of non-state market driven governance .......................................................... 22 2.5.1. First-order effects .................................................................................................................... 23 2.5.2. Second order effects ................................................................................................................ 24 2.6. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 25 3. Blue Flag as a form of NSMD governance .................................................................. 27 3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 27 3.1.1. Background .............................................................................................................................. 28 3.1.2. Beach criteria ........................................................................................................................... 28 3.1.3. Compliance .............................................................................................................................. 29 3.1.4. Application procedure ............................................................................................................. 29 2 3.1.5. Regulation and monitoring ...................................................................................................... 30 3.2. Blue Flag as a form of NSMD governance ..................................................................................... 30 3.3. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 31 4. The legitimacy of Blue Flag: The case of Bulgaria ................................................ 32 4.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 32 4.1.1. Background .............................................................................................................................. 32 4.1.2. Current situation ...................................................................................................................... 34 4.2. Legitimacy granting ........................................................................................................................ 36 4.2.1. Types of actors ......................................................................................................................... 36 4.2.2. Type of legitimacy ................................................................................................................... 39 4.2.3. Recognition and durability ....................................................................................................... 39 4.3. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 40 5. The effectiveness of Blue Flag: the case of Sunny Beach ................................... 41 5.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 41 5.1.1. Background .............................................................................................................................. 41 5.1.2. The costal tourism in Sunny Beach and its consequences ....................................................... 43 5.2. The effectiveness of Blue Flag certification in Sunny Beach ......................................................... 44 5.2.1. First-order effects .................................................................................................................... 45 5.2.2 Second-order effects ................................................................................................................. 48 5.3. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 49 6. Discussion and conclusions ................................................................................................. 50 6.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 50 6.2. Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 50 6.3. Conclusions and recommendations ............................................................................................... 52 Reference .................................................................................................................................................. 54 Appendix 1 ................................................................................................................................................. 58 Appendix 2 ................................................................................................................................................