The Evolution of Development Theory and Tourism - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 59

Tourism researchers have increasingly explored the tourism industry's
efforts to adopt more sustainable practices, including environmental audits,
codes of conduct and initiatives such as the Green Globe scheme (an inter-
national environmental awareness programme for the tourism industry),
which arose out of the 1992 Rio Conference and was launched in 1994
(Mowforth & Munt, 1998). Font (2001) examined over 70 tourism environ-
mental certification schemes as various authors and agencies began outlin-
ing principles and guidelines for sustainable tourism development (Eber,
1992; Pigram, 1990; WTO, 1993). In 1995, Agenda 21 for the Travel and
Tourism Industry was released by the World Travel and Tourism Council, the
UNWTO and the Earth Council. Looking ahead to the global development
paradigm discussed later in this chapter, a more recent certification scheme
is the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria. The tourism industry also moved
towards developing corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements (some
posted on their websites); however, the debate surrounding all of these ini-
tiatives is whether they work or whether they are more of a marketing tool.
Codes of conduct were also developed to encourage tourists to behave in a
responsible manner, but will tourists voluntarily change their behaviour (see
Chapter 12) ?
Within sustainability came the promotion of certain types of tourism,
such as ecotourism (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1991; Fennell, 1999) and commu-
nity-based tourism (see Chapter 6). Using the concepts of sustainability and
community involvement, ecotourism proclaims to preserve fragile and pro-
tected areas (see Chapter 6). Hashimoto and Telfer examined the challenges
for ecotourism in Canada's north for aboriginal peoples, which included a
fragile environment, lack of accessibility, expectations of tourists, level of
indigenous control, level of experience in tourism businesses and lack of capi-
tal. They also noted that 'the use of the ecotourism label developed from the
Eurocentric exogenous tourism industry may clash with the social and cul-
tural values of the aboriginal communities' (Hashimoto & Telfer, 2004: 223).
Elsewhere, Horochowski and Moisey (1999) investigated the role of environ-
mental NGOs in sustainable tourism development in Northern Honduras.
The study investigated the local population's support for ecotourism and
found that strategies adopted by the NGOs which emphasised local partici-
pation were most likely to achieve development and resource sustainability.
One NGO which has received a great deal of attention in the media is
UK-based Tourism Concern, which draws attention to exploitation in inter-
national tourism, often in developing countries. Questions continue to sur-
round sustainability and Sharpley (2009b) suggests there is a significant gap
between the idealism of sustainable tourism development and the reality of
tourism development in practice. He suggests there is an impasse in the aca-
demic study of sustainable tourism and it is time to move beyond the restric-
tive and managerialist ideals and offers a destination capitals model as an
alternative framework (see Chapter 15).