Measuring Stakeholder Perspectives on Environmental and Community Stability in a Tourism-Dependent Economy

Tourism is promoted as an environmentally beneficial activity for Caribbean economies. Yet degradation still occurs and more integrated policy approaches are needed. Using Q-methodology within a social-ecological system (SES) framework, we quantified the importance of various policy issues to stakeholders in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, where tourism produces 77% of its GDP. Stakeholders agree Providenciales' economy benefits from a healthy marine environment, but disagree over which SES drivers are functionally important. Our results show that Q-methodology is a robust tool for informing the policy-making process and quantifying stakeholder views in a tourism-dependent economy.