Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
23
Sustainable tourism
Lesley France
Laine, the theologian and holiday psychologist
Paul Rieger and Professor Jost Krippendorf
(Krippendorf 1987).
Academics from a variety of disciplines
published tourism studies in the late 1970s and
1980s. This work was drawn from the following
fields: anthropology (Smith 1977), which focused
on notions of authenticity both in artefacts sold
to tourists and in non-material customs such as
rituals and dances; sociology (O'Grady 1981),
which centred around changes resulting from
contacts between hosts and guests e.g. in language,
religious practices, prostitution; economics
(Vaughan and Long 1982), within which the
nature and extent of employment, foreign
exchange earnings, linkages with other sectors of
the economy and dependency were among the
factors considered; ecology (Stroud 1983; Pawson
et al . 1984), which examined the effects of air and
water pollution and the destruction of flora and
fauna; and geography (Pearce 1987; Shaw and
Williams 1994), which concentrated on the spatial
aspects of tourism activity. Much detailed research
was collected on tourism within general texts
(Mathieson and Wall 1982; Lea 1988; Pearce 1989).
These also often proposed planning and policy
measures to alleviate the problems arising from
negative tourism impacts. Such measures—such as
the imposition of quotas on visitors or cruise ships,
land-use planning restrictions, conservation work,
employment regulations—tried to establish a
viable alternative approach to tourism that is less
destructive for the host society, economy and
environment yet still provides a satisfying
INTRODUCTION
who could have foreseen all this three summers ago;
when their yachts first dropped anchor here; when the
first village houses were bought and converted…the
first property acquired and developed? …it is time to
weigh anchor again and seek remoter islands and
farther shores and pray for another three years reprieve.
(Fermor 1983:120)
Originally published in 1966 with reference to the
coasts of southern Spain, this graphic description
of the spread of Christaller's (1964) 'pleasure
periphery' hints at some of the negative impacts
of tourism in destination areas. These impacts
became more acute and more widespread during
the following thirty years and included ecological
damage, the loss of traditional values and societies,
and the operation of the economically and
environmentally disastrous 'resort cycle' (Butler
1980; Lane 1990). Essentially, they were an
outcome of the post-war growth in the numbers
of tourists resulting from increased leisure and paid
holidays, greater disposable income, and cheaper
and easier travel for many in the urban industrial
areas of Northwest Europe and North America
(see Box 23.1).
Widespread discussion in the 1970s by a range
of people from futurologists to academics and
church-based groups took place about the
negative effects of the 'unfettered growth in mass
tourism' (Lane 1990). France, Germany and
Switzerland led the search for alternative forms of
sustainable tourism (defined in the following
section) with the economist and sociologist Pierre
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