Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mathieson & Wall, 1982; Smith, 1977; Turner & Ash, 1975) and, arguably,
by the 1990s no subject concerned academics, journalists, pressure groups
and certain sectors of the tourism industry more than the so-called 'impacts
of tourism'.
To a great extent, criticism focused specifically on the phenomenon of
mass tourism. In other words, problems associated with the development of
tourism were widely considered to reflect, in particular, the alleged 'crisis'
of mass tourism (Croall, 1995; Poon, 1993). It is not surprising, therefore,
that the concept of 'alternative' (to mass) tourism gained support as a poten-
tial means of minimising the negative consequences of tourism while opti-
mising the benefits both to the destination and to tourists (see Smith &
Eadington, 1992). Proposing new, integrated and environmentally benign
forms of tourism development, alternative tourism formed the foundation
for the concept of sustainable tourism development which, throughout the
last two decades, has remained the dominant approach to the promotion,
management and practice of tourism. Reflecting and appropriating the prin-
ciples and objectives of the broader sustainable development paradigm (see
Chapter 2), sustainable tourism development addresses many (and often justi-
fiable) concerns and criticisms of mass tourism and forms the basis of many
tourism development policies at destinational and national levels.
Many of the tourism development issues and challenges raised through-
out this topic are also embraced by the sustainable tourism concept. That is,
sustainable tourism as, in principle, a vehicle for (sustainable) development,
offers potential solutions to many of the problems and weaknesses of tour-
ism-related development identified in the preceding chapters. For example,
increasing and spreading the local retention of income from tourism (Chapter 3),
addressing the global challenge of poverty reduction (Chapter 4) empow-
ering local communities in tourism development (Chapter 6) and minimis-
ing negative environmental impacts both generally (Chapter 9) and in the
context of climate change in particular (Chapter 11) are all, in addition to
being desirable characteristics and outcomes of tourism, fundamental objec-
tives of sustainable tourism development. However, despite widespread sup-
port for its aims and principles, sustainable tourism development remains, as
does its parental paradigm, a contested concept (Liu, 2003; Redclift, 1987;
Sharpley, 2000a). Indeed, not only has the validity of sustainable tourism as
a practical or realistic model for the development of tourism long been ques-
tioned in many quarters but also, in more recent years, it has been argued
that the concept of sustainable tourism development is based upon flawed
foundations. Specifically, it is suggested that the age-old notion of (environ-
mental) sustainability has been appropriated and misapplied to the contexts
of economy and society, creating objectives - economic sustainability and
social sustainability - that are at best ambiguous and at worst meaningless
(Mundt, 2011). Consequently, it has been argued elsewhere (Sharpley, 2009b:
58) that 'the time has come to “close the topic” on sustainable tourism
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