The relationship between tourism and the physical, socio-cultural, economic and political environments in which it occurs and impacts has long been recognized and considered in academic literature. However, these two issues are implicitly linked within the concept of sustainable tourism, a tourism development paradigm that has dominated the tourism literature since the early 1990s, but which has largely focused on prescriptive, managerial or 'blueprint'. . Moreover, it is now increasingly accepted that the debate on the development of sustainable tourism has reached a kind of impasse.
The aim of the Earthscan Tourism, Environment and Development series is therefore to promote knowledge and understanding of the relationship between tourism and the environment at a time when not only the environmental agenda in general, and climate change in particular, is changing to obtain. increasing political prominence on the international stage, but also when environmental integrity is the key challenge facing the tourism sector. Each book offers a contemporary, concise and critical analysis within a specific theme or context, but at the same time contributes to a broader picture provided by the series as a whole, expanding the debate beyond the contemporary perspectives of sustainable tourism -development.
Introduction
Of course, the World Tourism Organization (now the United Nations World Tourism Organization, or UNWTO, to distinguish it from the World Trade Organization) has long published policies and guidelines for sustainable tourism development. For example, his Sustainable Tourism Development: A Guide for Local Planners (WTO, 1993) was followed by Agenda 21 for the Travel and Tourism Industry, published jointly with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTO/WTTC, 1996) . The travel and tourism industry itself, to some extent, is also engaged with the concept of sustainable tourism development.
For example, the European Community Model of Sustainable Tourism (ECOMOST) project was an early attempt, under the auspices of the International Federation of Tour Operators, to adopt an integrated, sustainable approach to tourism planning in Rhodes and Mallorca (IFTO, 1994 ). It aims to challenge the 'status quo' of sustainable tourism development and explore tourism development.
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
USAID United States Agency for International Development VFR (tourists) Visiting friends and family members (tourists) WCED World Commission on Environment and Development WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Environment: An Introduction
It is also important to assess the nature or structure of tourism as an economic sector. Tourist destination region: the region that attracts tourists, which experiences the consequences of tourism development and where the primary elements of the production system are located (hotels, attractions, facilities). However, after an introduction to the role of tourism as a development agent, the rest of this chapter examines the evolution of tourism demand and supply and subsequent transformations in the tourism-environment relationship.
These changes in the nature of tourism demand can be explained from a number of perspectives. Concerns about the consequences or impacts of tourism development (and solutions) are usually focused on the destination.
From Economic Growth to Sustainability
The purpose of this chapter is to review the evolution of the relationship between tourism and development as a background to the critique of sustainable tourism development in Chapter 3. Naturally, reducing levels of dependence (or, as a result, increasing self-reliance) is, as we must see, one of the goals of sustainable tourism development. As discussed earlier, the roots of the concept of sustainable tourism development lay in the strategies for developing alternative forms of tourism that emerged in the 1980s, strategies that reflected the alternative development paradigm more generally.
At the same time, however, it exposes tourism to the ambiguities and contradictions of the concept of sustainable development itself. A critique of the concept of sustainable tourism development is the subject of the next chapter.
Development: A Critique
That is, sustainable tourism is a prerequisite for, but is subordinate to, sustainable development within the overall goal of sustainable tourism development. Nevertheless, both initial and contemporary definitions of sustainable tourism development closely align it with the broader principles of sustainable development or sustainability. Despite the recognition of the need to align tourism development with the principles of sustainable development, the extent to which this can be done in practice remains questionable.
And therein lies one of the main and most enduring criticisms of sustainable development: namely, that it is an oxymoron. In addition to these general criticisms of sustainable development and its importance for tourism, the sustainable development of tourism itself can be criticized from two aspects. Secondly, the principles and goals of the sustainable development of tourism can be compared with the modern nature and character of tourism itself.
Nevertheless, effective management of the development of tourism may be necessary to limit its negative effects within acceptable limits. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT 69 sources, as well as the likelihood of a collective, uniform commitment to the principles of sustainable development on the part of the industry. As the table shows, the compatibility between tourism and sustainable development is poor in a number of areas, reflecting some of the now well-rehearsed arguments against sustainable tourism development (see Sharpley, 2000a).
According to Butler (1998, p31) it is 'in the case of the relevant time scale that sustainable development presents the greatest problems in the context of tourism'. Nevertheless, it also points to a broader and, for this chapter, final challenge to the concept of sustainable tourism development. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT 79 business, education and spiritual travel, is considered a sector of the tourism market.
Post-Development’
However, the company accounts for 60 per cent of the UK market to The Gambia or about 30 per cent of all tourists arriving in the country and therefore has a significant influence within the Gambia tourism industry (Sharpley, 2009; see also case study below). ). Characteristics of tourism in The Gambia Tourism is spatially confined to the small coastal strip, limiting employment, income and other opportunities to the western edges of the country. Some of these issues are then illustrated in the English Lake District case study at the end of the chapter.
However, for the purposes of this chapter, Figure 5.1 provides a useful framework for highlighting issues significant to the tourism-environment relationship. It is inevitably at the level of the destination that the interface between tourism and the environment is clearest. In general, therefore, no general assumptions can be made about the nature of the tourism-environment interface in the context of the characteristics of tourism development; this will likely vary from case to case.
However, the challenge of climate change is paramount in the context of this chapter and is undoubtedly one of the most important issues facing the future development of tourism on a global scale. At the same time, a number of other factors, both inside and outside the destination, can determine the perception and use of the environment. Indeed, the analysis of the tourism system from an economic point of view is fraught with difficulties (Bull, 1995; Sinclair and Stabler, 1997).
Strictly speaking, technology, as with finance, is not a form of capital in the traditional sense of the word. First, however, a brief review of the development of tourism will form the framework for that analysis. From 1960, when the focus of tourism shifted from the traditional mountain resorts of the Troodos Mountains to the coast, tourism grew rapidly.
This first period of tourism development coincided with the rapid expansion of the island's economy: 'in the 14 years after independence. It is widely accepted that there has been 'unprecedented pressure on the natural environment of the island due to the uncontrolled expansion of tourism'.
Alternative Framework for Tourism Development
Tourism development should therefore be based on the utilization of these assets in a way that reflects and respects local needs and meets the demands of potential tourists. Based on a series of case studies, it suggests how such an approach can prove to be more effective in optimizing the benefits of tourism – within environmental parameters as defined by the destination – than overall sets of principles such as those that characterize the concept of sustainable tourism development. Rather, it is to propose a more pragmatic approach to tourism development that, by offering an alternative to the comfortable or, as described in Chapter 3, the hypocritical and delusional idealism of sustainable tourism development, provides a platform for more vigorous debate and further research into some of the issues identified in this book.
At the same time, it can help to build a bridge between academic discourse of tourism development and the practical challenges that destinations face. First, however, it is useful to briefly review some of the key points raised in this book that justify a 'destination capitals' model of tourism development. More specifically, it focuses primarily on how to optimize the benefits of tourism within environmental parameters, the fundamental argument being that, in order to do so, it is necessary to progress beyond the restrictive concept of sustainable tourism development.
Nevertheless, each definition also points to key issues that support the case for a “destination capitals” approach to tourism development. This again suggests that tourism development can only be considered from the perspective of the destination, not within 'one-size-fits-all', top-down planning frameworks. Therefore, the destination again represents the most appropriate context to consider tourism development from an industry perspective, as local planning restrictions and so on may be imposed to reflect local environmental and social conditions.
Similarly, when tourism is viewed as a complex system of interactions, it becomes clear that it is difficult to clearly delineate tourism from other social and economic systems, thus strengthening the arguments that the destination is the most appropriate 'unit of analysis' for tourism development is. However, a central argument in this book is that 'development' as currently conceptualized does not necessarily or automatically flow from tourism. For destinations, the net benefits of tourism development are in fact the 'profit', or the value of tourism once costs have been taken into account (including, perhaps, environmental costs).
![Figure 1.2 Tourist experiences of destination environments[fig]Figure 1.2 Tourist experiences of destination environments](https://thumb-ap.123doks.com/thumbv2/1libvncom/9195677.0/46.637.63.574.280.592/tourist-experiences-destination-environments-tourist-experiences-destination-environments.webp)
