The California Regional Tourism Sustainability and Resilience Dashboard is the product of a collaborative initiative designed to establish a first-of-its-kind regional understanding of resilience and sustainability across California's 12 tourism regions. This project is a cornerstone of the Regional Tourism Strategic Plans, aiming to deliver actionable insights for building resilient and sustainable tourism destinations.

The California Regional Tourism Sustainability and Resilience Dashboard serves as a centralized platform for tourism stakeholders to monitor and improve the sustainability and resilience of California’s 12 tourism regions. By consolidating data from natural hazard assessments, climate impact projections, resilience and sustainability performance metrics, it allows users to make data-driven decisions for long-term resilience and sustainability.

Interviews with California tourism stakeholders highlighted a critical gap: the absence of a single platform housing comprehensive data on tourism sustainability and resilience, which hampers informed, coordinated decision-making. The California Regional Tourism Sustainability and Resilience Dashboard addresses this need by consolidating essential metrics in one place, empowering destination managers, policy-makers, and local communities to track progress against resilience and sustainability goals. By simplifying data access and visualization, the dashboard enables users to assess region-specific risks, anticipate challenges, and manage resources more effectively, fostering a unified approach to building long-term resilience across California’s tourism landscape.

The dashboard’s Resilience and Sustainability Scorecard assesses each region across seven Critical Success Factors (CSFs). These factors represent essential areas for sustainable and resilient tourism management and align with global frameworks like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR).
The seven CSFs are:

1. Understanding Risks – Assessing multi-hazard and climate impacts on tourism assets.
2. Managing Destination Resilience – Developing and maintaining resilient infrastructure and planning capabilities.
3. Preparedness for Crisis Response – Enhancing readiness for effective crisis management.
4. Investing in Resilience and Sustainability – Allocating resources to sustainable infrastructure and practices.
5. Managing Sustainable Tourism Growth – Balancing growth with environmental and community impacts.
6. Local Community Well-being and Engagement – Fostering partnerships with local communities and enhancing their well-being.
7. Environmental Awareness and Conservation – Promoting conservation efforts and responsible environmental practices.

Each CSF is rated on a 5-point scale, with scores ranging from minimal awareness (1) to full integration and transformation (5). This rating system provides a clear picture of where each region stands in terms of resilience and sustainability and highlights areas needing improvement.

The dashboard combines quantitative data (e.g., climate projections, environmental metrics, and destination indicators) with qualitative insights (e.g., stakeholder assessments on resilience and sustainability). Data is presented across interactive maps, charts, and tables, allowing users to explore specific data points for each of California’s tourism regions. Users can filter data by region and data theme. Data is also organized by seven Critical Success Factors (CSF) for resilient and sustainable tourism growth for each region region.

The scorecard employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches, giving a comprehensive view of each region’s resilience and sustainability status.

The dashboard is more than just a data repository; it’s a tool for active planning and decision-making in tourism resilience. Here’s how users can apply its insights:

• Destination Managers can use the dashboard to monitor progress against regional goals, understand key risks, and prioritize areas needing improvement. For instance, by observing risk scores for climate and natural hazards, managers can implement tailored adaptation strategies to protect tourism infrastructure.
• Policy-Makers can rely on the dashboard to allocate resources more effectively. For example, if a region scores low on preparedness (CSF 3), resources can be directed towards training and infrastructure enhancements to improve crisis response capabilities.
• Community Leaders and Local Businesses can leverage the dashboard to advocate for sustainable tourism practices. Data on community engagement (CSF 6) and environmental conservation (CSF 7) can support efforts to develop community-based tourism and conservation initiatives.
• Hotels and Tourism Operators benefit from the dashboard’s integration with the Hotel Resilient platform, which highlights sustainability and resilience practices in California’s hotels. Operators can identify gaps in their practices compared to regional benchmarks, helping them to enhance their resilience profiles.

The development of the Dashboard was led by Risklayer GmbH, an international company in risk and resilience planning for tourism destinations. This was a collaborative effort with JLL’s Tourism Development Advisory Services, a globally recognized team specializing in tourism and development planning and SWCA, a California-based environmental consultancy.

Risklayer designed and developed the dashboard, and contributed international expertise in the development of the Resilience and Sustainability Scorecard, ensuring that the methodology reflects global standards and best practices.

SWCA provided localized knowledge and insights, integrating California-specific environmental, regulatory, and community factors into the assessment.

JLL’s planning teams worked alongside these partners to conduct focus group and expert panel interviews a tailored Resilience + Sustainability Scorecard. This scorecard serves as the foundation for the dashboard, offering detailed, region-specific recommendations to support the long-term sustainability of California's tourism ecosystem.

Together, this multidisciplinary team crafted a robust, data-driven tool that empowers California’s tourism stakeholders to track, analyze, and enhance resilience and sustainability across the state. This collaboration highlights the value of combining global insights with local expertise to address the unique needs and challenges faced by California’s diverse tourism regions.