Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
￿ Sustainable consumption:
Adoption of a new social
paradigm relevant to
sustainable living.
￿ Sustainable production:
Biodiversity conservation;
technological systems that can
search continuously for new
solutions to environmental
problems.
￿ Sustainable distribution:
International and national
political and economic
systems dedicated to equitable
development and resource use.
￿ Global alliance facilitating
integrated development
policies at local, national and
international levels.
Limited evidence of
'responsible' tourism
consumption in practice.
'Tourists are consumers, not
anthropologists'.
Some evidence of 'corporate
social responsibility' and
environmental programmes
within some organisations:
also benchmarking schemes.
Limited opportunities for
global alliances' or global
systems' equitable access to
and distribution of tourism
resources.
Requirements
for sustainable
development:
Figure 15.3 ( Continued )
tourism industry and the related regionalised and polarised character-
istics of international tourist flows highlight the significant degree of
dependency inherent in the global tourism system. Thus, equitable
inter- and intra-generational development is unlikely to be achieved
through tourism.
In terms of futurity, the focus of most plans/policies is primarily upon
short-term profitability of tourism businesses and the longer term viabil-
ity of tourism (i.e. sustaining tourism) rather than long-term sustainable
development through tourism. More specifically, the tourism production
system comprises innumerable, principally small, private sector, profit-
motivated businesses. Therefore, although longer-term business success
(or, in a narrow sense, sustainability) is an objective for most businesses,
it is likely that, for most businesses, short-term profit or even survival
remains the dominant concern for most tourism related businesses.
Moreover, future tourism demand and flows, upon which the develop-
mental contribution of tourism depends, cannot be accurately predicted.
Despite forecasts of 1.6 billion international arrivals by 2020, such an
estimate is just that, although based on historical data that would logi-
cally suggest continuing growth. However, this cannot be taken for
granted, dependent as it would be on greater (and more equitable) pros-
perity and access to travel opportunities around the world, whilst the
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search