How the CIRA Index works

One set of 35 measures from public sources, graded once on published bands, with the value, period and source kept with every grade, then read six ways.

Six themes and their measures

Demand and seasonality

How concentrated are visits in time and origin?

• Nights in the three busiest months (% of annual nights): A year spread evenly puts 25% of nights in any three months. Above 40% the destination depends on one season.
• Domestic share of nights (% of nights by residents of the same country): The OECD treats a domestic base as a resilience factor: domestic demand held up and returned first after COVID-19 and border shocks.
• Largest foreign market (% of international arrivals or nights): One market above 30% ties the destination to one economy, one exchange rate and one set of air routes.
• Recovery against 2019 (% of 2019 visitor nights reached in the latest full year): How far demand has come back after the last global shock is the best observed test of recovery speed.
• Average length of stay (nights per visitor): Longer stays mean fewer arrivals for the same spend: less transport pressure and more local income per visitor.
• Hotel bed or room occupancy (% average annual occupancy): Steady high occupancy means demand fills capacity through the year; low occupancy leaves operators fragile in a downturn.

Economy and jobs

Can the local economy absorb a tourism shock?

• Jobs in tourism industries (% of employment in accommodation and food services): The OECD tracks this as tourism's contribution; for resilience, above about 16% a tourism shock becomes a labour-market shock.
• Unemployment rate (% of the labour force): Slack in the labour market limits how well workers and households absorb a lost season.
• Income per head (GDP per capita, USD PPP): Wealthier places can fund adaptation and support businesses through a shock.
• Economic diversity (% of employment outside accommodation, food, retail and transport): A broad employment base keeps income flowing when visitors stop coming.

Climate and hazards

How exposed is the place to heat, flood, fire and disaster?

• Extreme heat days (days a year at or above 35°C (last 5 full years)): Days at 35°C and above cut outdoor visiting and put workers and older visitors at risk.
• Tropical nights (nights a year with a minimum at or above 20°C (last 5 full years)): Hot nights stop recovery from daytime heat; they drive heat illness and resident discomfort.
• Flood hazard (ThinkHazard level, worst of river, urban and coastal flood): Flooded districts close hotels, transport and supply chains, as Valencia saw in October 2024.
• Wildfire and storm hazard (ThinkHazard level for wildfire and cyclone (worst of the two)): Fire smoke and storms close regions and airports and reach international news within hours.
• Country disaster risk (INFORM Risk index, 0–10): Combines hazard, vulnerability and coping capacity for the country the city relies on in a crisis.

Water and environment

Can water, wastewater and waste systems carry the visitor load?

• Water scarcity (ThinkHazard water scarcity level): Where demand already uses most of the renewable supply, a dry year means restrictions in peak season.
• Wastewater safely treated (% of domestic wastewater safely treated): Peak visitor loads overflow undersized treatment and close beaches and rivers.
• Municipal waste per resident (kg per resident per year): High waste per head signals a system already stretched by visitors and consumption.
• Green space (% of the urban area that is green or tree-covered): Green cover cools streets in heat waves and absorbs rain in storms. All vegetation and tree canopy counts, not only parks: narrower "green urban areas" statistics (parks and gardens) understate cooling cover and are not used.

Community and housing

Is tourism still welcome, and can residents afford to live there?

• Tourism intensity (visitor nights per resident per year): The OECD tracks population living under high tourism intensity; above 20 nights per resident, pressure is felt street by street.
• Cruise pressure (cruise passengers in the busiest month per resident): Thousands of day visitors landing at once concentrate on the historic centre and spend little overnight; the peak month, not the annual total, is what residents feel.
• Rent growth (% change in rents over the last 12 months): Fast rent rises push residents and hospitality workers out, which erodes consent for tourism.
• Short-let density (short-term rental listings per 100 dwellings): Dense short lets convert homes into visitor beds and concentrate pressure in central districts.
• Resident support for tourism (% of residents who say tourism benefits them or the city): The OECD lists resident satisfaction among its priority metrics; INSTO calls it an early warning system.

Access and continuity

Can people reach the place, and is the city ready to respond and recover?

• Access redundancy (independent ways in: international airport, intercity rail, port, motorway): A destination reached one way stops when that one way stops, as the April 2025 Iberian blackout showed for rail.
• Air traffic recovery (% of the same 12 months of 2019, airport passengers): Airport passengers are the earliest monthly signal of whether visitors are coming back after a shock; below 90% of 2019 the recovery is slow, below 75% the loss is structural.
• Rail share of intercity access (% of intercity passengers travelling by long-distance rail (rail vs rail + airport)): A second mass mode keeps visitors arriving when flights are disrupted, and it is the lower-carbon link. A city without an airport counts 100% by rail.
• Rail traffic recovery (% of 2019 long-distance rail passengers, latest year): Mirrors air traffic recovery: a rail link carrying fewer passengers than in 2019 is weakening as a way in.
• Largest airline group share (% of airport passengers carried by the largest airline group): When one airline group carries a large share of passengers, one base closure, strike or bankruptcy (Monarch, Thomas Cook) removes routes overnight. Groups count by ownership: Ryanair with Malta Air and Buzz, IAG with Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus.
• Air route concentration (% of international air passengers on routes to the 3 largest partner countries): When most seats come from two or three countries, one recession, currency swing or route cut in those markets empties hotels. Applies where the airport carries at least 500,000 international passengers a year.
• Early warning and emergency plan (rubric): UNDRR Essential 9 asks for effective early warning and response; visitors are the people least likely to hear a local warning.
• Tourism crisis and recovery plan (rubric): Recovery is faster where the destination already knows who does what and who pays.
• Government effectiveness (World Bank WGI percentile rank, 0–100): Public services and policy delivery set the ceiling for any response.
• Travel advisory (stricter of the US and Canadian government advisory for the country, 1 (normal precautions) to 4 (do not travel)): Conflict, unrest and sanctions stop international travel regardless of how well a city is run: a level 3 or 4 advisory cancels insurance, tours and airline demand. Proposal for review (v0.1).
• Dedicated tourism funding (rubric): Promotion funded by the cycle shrinks exactly when recovery needs it (Brand USA lost 80% of federal funding in 2025).

Six lenses on the same grades

• CIRA Index: Weighted mix of the six systems, using every graded measure.
• OECD: Mean grade of the measures that correspond to the OECD regional tourism sustainability framework, each pointed the way the OECD says is better.
• UN Tourism: Mean of the area grades across the 11 INSTO issue areas; areas with no evidence are shown as gaps, not zeros.
• UNDRR: Each essential as a percentage of its maximum; UNDRR notes that scores are not directly comparable across cities.
• World Bank: Country and macro context grouped by World Bank diagnostic modules; shown as context, not ranked.
• World Economic Forum: the country’s rank in the Travel & Tourism Development Index 2026 (110 economies), and the city against what cities in countries with that score reach.

Why you can trust the numbers

• Missing is never zero: a missing measure lowers coverage and confidence, not the score.
• Confidence travels with every number: city figures count fully, regional 80%, national 55%.
• National figures fill gaps, labelled: the WEF national value fills a missing city figure, marked national. Real city data always wins.
• A versioned method: every band and rule is public.
• An automated desk assessment from public sources, not an audit or an official rating by any organisation whose criteria we apply.

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