tourism in improving foreign exchange earnings, it emphasised that little attention had been given to environmental planning and manage-ment, leading to natural resource degradation and threatening the sustainability of both the environment and the tourism. Within ten years of the report, the Kenyan government had to request World Bank support for a ‘Protected Areas and Wildlife Services Project’ to mitigate the environmental problems caused by tourism.
SAPs have encouraged LDCs to develop their natural and cultural resources for tourism as a component of the neo- liberalism emphasis on market- orientated growth and increased levels of exports, specifi cally in industries in which coun-tries have a comparative advantage in world markets. This emphasis on export- led production has led to a shift in development strategy away from an inward perspective towards an outward orientation (Brohman, 1996). This includes the expansion of previously ignored economic sectors such as international tourism, which can be grouped with other new ‘growth’ sectors; for example, non- traditional agricultural exports to Western countries. It is these sectors which are believed by the World Bank and IMF to show much promise for stimulating rapid growth using the comparative advantages of developing countries. The emphasis on tourism as an export industry and foreign exchange earner, combined with a simultaneous reduction in state protection to fl edgling industries such as tourism, has led to increased interest from multinationals as they continue to attempt to secure new markets for their products. They also wish to have unimpeded access to resources (Scheyvens, 2002), including the natural, cultural and human. Some developing countries have also wanted to increase tourism arrivals as a consequence of falling world commodity prices during the 1980s and 1990s, and the requirement to fulfi l debt repayments to the IMF and World Bank.
The ‘Post-Washington Consensus’: alternative and
There has been a subsequent re- evaluation of the usefulness and direction of SAPs, causing a stated refocusing of economic growth on reducing poverty and levels of inequality by supranational agencies, as evidenced in the MDGs shown in Box 1.1 . This shift since the beginning of the millennium to focus on the poor has sometimes been labelled the ‘Post-Washington Consensus’ (PWC) that incor-porates a ‘New Poverty Agenda’. Subsequently, in 1999 the IMF and World Bank replaced SAPs with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), as the pre- conditions for countries to obtain further loans and debt relief. A stated intended shift of PRSP is that the importance of country ownership of economic reform programmes is recognised by the IMF and World Bank. There are fi ve core prin-ciples that underlie the PRSP approach, they are:
country- driven, promoting national ownership of strategies through broad- based participation of civil society; result- oriented and focussed on outcomes that will benefi t the poor; comprehensive in recognising the multidimensional nature of poverty; partnership- oriented, involving coordinated participation of development partners (government, domestic stakeholders and external donors); and based on a long- term perspective for poverty reduction.
(IMF, 2012: 1) Whilst these core principles would appear to represent a change in focus to poverty reduction from prioritising purely economic growth, and offer a frame-work for achieving the MDG targets, the extent that PRSPs represent a real break with the characteristics of neo- liberalism is very uncertain and highly disputed.
For Scheyvens (2007) the solutions to poverty remain embedded in neo- liberalism, whilst Storey et al. (2005: 34) emphasise that from the perspective of the World Bank and IMF the main determinants of whether a PRS is pro- poor or not is mined by the ‘soundness’ of its macro- economic policy. This is in turn is deter-mined by the extent of liberalisation and privatisation of the national economy, and development of the private sector, which leads Storey et al . (ibid.) to refer to PSRPs as being ‘remarkably similar to their predecessor structural adjustment programmes’. Similarly, Mowforth and Munt (2009) liken PRSPs to SAPs in that countries remain forced to pursue policies not of their own design, but externally imposed by international agencies, whilst Power (2004: 275) terms the process as:
‘neo- liberalism with a human face’, leading him to suggest it as premature to refer to a PWC. The use of tourism as a tool for poverty reduction is reinforced through the PRSPs, with 80 per cent of the 56 countries with poverty reduction strategies citing tourism as an option for economic growth, poverty reduction and employ-ment. Several, including Ghana, Cambodia, Honduras and Kenya, give it an equal weighting with agriculture and manufacturing (Hawkins and Mann, 2007).
Whilst the World Bank replacement of SAPs with PRSPs may represent a less radical shift than the name would infer, the recognition that decision- making on development should be made at the national rather than international level infers
a degree of devolvement of power. It is also representative of an emphasis towards more localised decision- making which is inherent to the alternative paradigm of development, a challenging of externally imposed policies for development, a key tenet being ‘agency’ or the capacity of people to infl uence and direct local change, consequently stressing local participation and being social- centred. There exists a subsequent prioritising of objectives of development that are refl ective of locally defi ned needs, and methodologies of development decision- making that are participatory and endogenous. However, beyond this basic principle, alternative development is more problematic to defi ne as Pieterse (2010: 85) observes: ‘Over the years alternative development has been reinforced by and associated with virtually any form of criticism of mainstream developmentalism, such as anti- capitalism, Green thinking, feminism, eco- feminism, democratisation, new social movements, Buddhist economics, cultural critiques, and poststructuralist analysis of development discourse.’
Whilst the alternative development paradigm may be diffi cult to defi ne and repre-sents a broadly based and eclectic consensus, the criticisms of modernisation and neo- liberal theories has resulted in new methods for assessing development that extend beyond simple economic measurement; for example, the Human Develop-ment Index (HDI) as explained in Chapter 1. As Mowforth and Munt (2003) emphasise, these new systems of social, environmental and economic quantifi ca-tion, represent a move towards people- focused and participatory approaches to development. Indicative of this change is the increasing use of the term ‘social capital’, which refers to the ability of people to work collectively to fulfi l common goals, a theme now advocated by the World Bank (Power, 2004). An emphasis on community and local participation is also a decisive break from a dominant reli-ance on development through either state directives or supranational directives.
The emphasis of development subsequently becomes one of fulfi lling human needs with direct attacks on problems such as infant mortality, malnutrition, disease, literacy and sanitation. It can be argued that the infl uence of the alterna-tive paradigm on mainstream supranational agencies is evidenced through the creation of the MDGs. In the planning process, emphasis is placed upon inclusive and participatory processes that recognise indigenous theories of development as they incorporate local conditions and knowledge systems, rather than purely Western models of development. This is in marked contrast to the earlier modern-isation theory that held local customs and traditions as barriers to economic devel-opment and to neo- liberalism that seeks a universal blueprint of nation state comparative advantages and free markets.
Alongside participatory approaches and the development of civil society, inherent to the alternative paradigm is a strong environmental discourse that necessitates the conservation of natural resources and ecosystems. The linking of human development with the conservation of natural resources is epitomised in the
concept of ‘sustainable development’ which has subsequently been adopted and adapted into the paradigm of sustainable tourism development. The term ‘sustain-able development’ is typically associated with the Brundtland Report, offi cially the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987). Arising from concerns over the effects of economic growth on the natural environment and commissioned in 1984 by the United Nations, the Brundtland Report is the outcome of an investigation carried out by an independent group of 22 people from various member states representing both the developing and the developed world who constituted the World Commission on Environment and Development. Led by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the then prime minister of Norway, the aim of the commission was to identify viable long- term strategies for develop-ment that could be established on a sustainable use of natural resources and the environment. Accompanying a heightened awareness of environmental problems was a realisation that the environment and development are inexorably linked.
Development cannot take place upon a deteriorating natural resource base; neither can the environment be protected, when development excludes the costs of its destruction. The way industrial development has been pursued, characterised by a general lack of concern for nature, has led to the use of natural resources in a way that is unsustainable, that is, many fi nite resources are being exhausted whist the capacity of the natural environment to assimilate waste is being exceeded.
Signifi cant to the Brundtland Report is the premise that poverty alleviation based upon sustainable development is critical for the long- term environmental well- being of the planet and for human development. Poverty is a major cause of envi-ronmental destruction, a relationship that is particularly exacerbated in regions of the world where the population is growing rapidly, and forced into more marginal environments. Alongside poverty and destruction, the report also emphasises the need for consideration of both intra- and inter- generational equity as an important part of a more harmonious society and environmental conservation. Not only is there a necessity for a fairer distribution of wealth in society in the present but there also needs to be provision in planning and policy for development to ensure that future generations have the availability of a quality of natural resources and eco- system services to ensure their well- being.
The term ‘sustainable development’ gained greater recognition in international policy through Agenda 21 following the United Nations Conference on Environ-ment and DevelopEnviron-ment (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, popularly referred to as the ‘Earth Summit’. The action plan was subsequently reaffi rmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg in South Africa in 2002, of which one outcome was the delinking of economic growth and environmental degradation, promoting sustainable development that does not exceed the carrying capacity of ecosystems (La Vińa et al. , 2003). It was recognised in ‘The Plan of Implementation’ that was the outcome of the summit
that ethics had to be considered in development, the fi rst time that an explicit reference to ethics had been made in an offi cial UN document (ibid.). The plan includes reference to tourism, specifi cally recognising it as offering sustainable development potential to certain communities.
The term ‘sustainable development’ has become widely used by governments, international lending agencies, non- governmental organisations, the private sector and academia. The fact that the term can be readily adopted by such a diverse range of organisations, some of whom could be viewed as having divergent and politically opposed objectives, is a refl ection of the inherent ambiguity of the concept permitting a variety of perspectives to be taken on sustainability (Holden, 2005; Sharpley, 2009). Much of this ambiguity can be traced to the most commonly quoted defi nition of sustainable development taken from the Brundtland Report:
‘Yet in the end, sustainable development is not a fi xed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of the investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs’ (WCED, 1987:
9). The inherent problem being that whilst most people would agree with this statement, the divergence of opinion of how to achieve it is large, and political tensions underlie much of the debate about its interpretation. At a broad level of generalisation, distinctions can be made between a ‘light green’ or ‘technocentric’
approach to achieving sustainable development and a more radical ‘dark green’ or
‘ecocentric’ approach. This latter approach is more radical because it challenges excessive patterns of consumption in developed countries, calling for a change in economic and political structures, and a re- organisation of society to smaller- scale types of organisations. This fundamental division is between those for whom sustainability represents little more than improving technology and envi-ronmental accounting systems, whilst preserving the status quo of existing hierar-chies and power structures in society, and those who have more radical political agendas involving changing the value systems, power structures and political economy of society.
Given the potential of tourism to contribute to development, it is perhaps surprising that, as several authors (Hall, 1994; Telfer, 2002; Wall, 1997) have commented, the linkage of development theory to tourism remains relatively limited compared to other economic sectors. Referring to tourism, Bianchi (1999) suggests that the origins of this lack of engagement with the paradigmatic debate of development studies is a consequence of an emphasis in tourism studies of an applied and prac-tical nature. Despite an early lack of theoreprac-tical interest in tourism, recognition of its potential for development by the supranational agencies has its origins in the