Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The final chapter in the second part of the topic (Chapter 9) addresses
the relationship between tourism, development and the environment. The
chapter begins by presenting a framework of the tourism environment rela-
tionship before tracing the evolution of the environmental crisis. A critique
of sustainable development is presented arguing that sustainable tourism
development has failed as a result of environmental managerialism inherent
in sustainable development principles. Environmental managerialism, which
has underpinned tourism development planning in the Western world, holds
little relevance for developing countries. It is argued that there is a need to go
beyond the blueprint approach focusing on issues of environmental gover-
nance and ecological sustainability in order to provide a new interpretation
of the tourism environment relationship. The concepts related to sustainable
development are further examined in Chapter 15. However, the approach
taken here raises some intriguing questions. Has the debate on sustainable
tourism development reached a saturation point
?
As development thinking
continues to evolve, is there a successor to sustainable development
?
Can
sustainable development be defined differently in different country contexts
or is that just a way of simplifying the term
?
What has been the impact of
the blueprint approach of sustainable tourism development
?
The second part of this topic is meant to examine a variety of different
issues facing tourism development. One of the commonalties of the chapters
in this section is the need to rethink traditional notions of development
while considering the resulting implications to tourism development.
Economic growth plays a central role in most development theory and tour-
ism has become a favoured growth engine with the potential to increase jobs,
income, foreign exchange, domestic and international investment, promote
regional and community development and, more recently, reduce poverty.
While examples were presented to highlight cases where tourism has been
extremely effective, other instances were presented where tourism may not
have lived up to expectations. At the centre of many of the issues raised is
the question 'who really benefits from tourism development
?
' Different
forms of tourism in different country contexts can yield different results.
Western-based development theory and how development has traditionally
been measured is questioned. Even the concept of sustainable development,
which continues to be the focus of much of the tourism literature is criticised
for its deterministic and managerial approaches to planning.
Part 3
Part 3 of the topic examines the issues that are considered to be barriers
or challenges to tourism development. These barriers and challenges limit
the potential for tourism to contribute to overall development of a destina-
tion and it is the characteristics of tourism itself that present some of these
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