Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
impacts initially developed to guide companies towards providing a positive
account in all three dimensions (Elkington, 1997). It then considers tourism's
claims to alleviate poverty and the potential of pro-poor tourism, as these
issues have become more prominent in recent years. The focus then switches
to transport more specifically and the climate change impacts of tourism.
Climate change is first introduced into this context, before setting out the rela-
tionship between tourism and climate change. Having set out the issues, there
follows an analysis of current policy directions that have implications for
tourism transport and potential low-carbon tourism strategies. The chapter
concludes with a critique of sustainable tourism.
Tourism impact analyses
Most of the early studies on tourism impacts focused on economic outcomes.
In particular, researchers set out to quantify economic impacts, and a variety
of economic models and evaluation tools were developed (Archer and
Fletcher, 1996; Fleming and Toepper, 1990). However, researchers increas-
ingly recognized that there were negative impacts, and studies began to focus
on the impacts on residents and the environment (Bramwell and Lane, 1993).
The assumption, for many policy-makers and researchers, was that any such
negative impacts could be managed to make tourism more sustainable (Lea,
1988). Given that many studies start from this perspective, that is, identifying
a range of positive and negative impacts categories, it is not surprising that
they have tended to find what they were looking for. Impact studies have also
been limited by the range of impacts they have attempted to evaluate. The
impacts investigated are often derived from previous tourism impact studies,
and it is relatively rare for studies to explore stakeholder views to draw up
context-specific lists (Pearce et al, 1996).
The structure used to investigate tourism impacts has, in recent years,
been generally based on the triple bottom line framework. This approach has
been adapted from the earlier work of Elkington (2004) in relation to com-
panies, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. It has
been influential as a heuristic device to encourage organizations to evaluate all
of their activities in a more comprehensive way, although the assumption that
social and environmental performance can be measured in a similar way to
financial and economic indicators has been the subject of criticism (Norman
and MacDonald, 2003). Studies typically show positive economic benefits and
negative socio-cultural and environmental impacts (Andereck et al, 2005; Ap,
1990; Gursoy et al, 2002; Hall and Page, 2006). While acknowledging that
tourism can bring benefits, this section reviews the existing body of knowledge
that summarize its key impacts and issues.
Economic benefits of tourism are accrued at a national level, through
foreign exchange earnings and taxation. At a local level the benefits are
associated with both increased investment in an area by government and com-
mercial organizations and consumer spending in the local tourism economy.
This leads to economic development through improved infrastructure (e.g.
roads, water supply, energy supply) and job opportunities created by companies
