Business Performance and Sustainability in Cultural and Rural Tourism Destinations

This study analyzes business performance through efficiency score estimation in two sustainable tourism models: cultural and rural tourism. The uses microeconomic data (microdata) of Spanish firms with different characteristics terms size, region, location financial variables. Using multistage modeling (Data envelopment analysis, DEA, non-parametric frontier tests), the main results show that average is higher for destinations than destinations. Similar to other industries, by geographical regional destination confirm a driver levels Furthermore, do not support scale economies hypothesis: very small compared firm sizes, although large medium-size firms. Regarding dynamic efficiency, reveal slight variations among years examined, but differences are statistically significant. Finally, sheds light on link between practices as investment environmental protection developed regions during period.