The Consumption of Tourism - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 359

the character of tourism development. This, in turn, has a consequential
impact on the extent and nature of tourism's contribution to wider social and
economic development in destination areas.
The role of tourists in the tourism production process or, more accurately,
the potential impact of inappropriate tourist behaviour on tourism-related
development, has long been recognised. For example, according to Ousby
(1990: 89), in 1848 Thomas Cook wrote in a handbook for visitors that:
It is very seldom indeed that the privileges extended to visitors of the
mansions of the nobility are abused; but to the shame of some rude folk
from Lincolnshire, there have been just causes of complaint at Belvoir
Castle: some large parties have behaved indecorously, and they have to
some extent prejudiced the visits of other large companies. Conduct of
this sort is abominable, and cannot be too strongly reprobated.
More recently, particularly since the advent of mass, international tourism,
increasing concern has been expressed about the nature of the consumption
of tourism. Mass, package tourism - and tourists - have, in particular, attrac-
ted widespread criticism; Croall (1995: 1), for example, wrote of mass tour-
ism as a 'spectre haunting the planet' while, more recently, Hickman (2007)
has joined those seeking to reveal the 'true cost of our holidays'.
Such criticism directed at the mass tourist is as much a social construct as
it is a valid or accurate observation of a particular form of tourist behaviour; it
is 'more to do with the society and culture that produce the tourist than it does
with the encounter any given tourist or “traveller” may have with a foreign soci-
ety and culture' (Buzard, 1993: 5). Nevertheless, in response to the criticism
directed towards mass tourism consumption there have been calls from a vari-
ety of quarters for more appropriate or ethical behaviour on the part of tour-
ists. Numerous codes of conduct have been published with respect to either
specific activities or to particular regions (Cole, 2007; Garrod & Fennell, 2004;
Mason & Mowforth, 1995) whilst, more generally, people have been exhorted
to become 'good' (Popescu, 2008; Wood & House, 1991) or 'responsible' tour-
ists (Goodwin, 2011). On occasion, more direct approaches have also been
adopted. For example, during 1999 one British charter airline introduced 'edu-
cational' videos for tourists on flights to holidays in The Gambia.
At the same time, of course, the concept of sustainable tourism develop-
ment has also 'achieved virtual global endorsement as the new [tourism]
industry paradigm since the late 1980s' (Godfrey, 1996: 60). At the interna-
tional, national, local and industry sectoral levels, a plethora of policy docu-
ments, planning guidelines, statements of 'good practice', case studies and
other publications have been produced, all broadly concerned with the issue
of sustainable tourism development (Diamantis, 1999).
Importantly, however, not only is sustainable consumption a core pre-
requisite of sustainable (tourism) development; as Ludwig et al . (1993: 17)