English

Sustainable Tourism Development A Critique

Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly popular field of research since the late 1980s. Sustainable tourism development guidelines and management practices are applicable to all forms of tourism in all types of destinations, including mass tourism and the various niche tourism segments. Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic, and socio cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long term sustainability. However, the sustainable tourism debate is patchy, disjointed and often flawed with false assumptions and arguments. This paper is a brief critique of some of the weaknesses in the sustainable tourism literature. In particular, it explores six issues that are often overlooked but must be addressed in research the role of tourism demand, the nature of tourism resources, the imperative of intra generational equity, the role of tourism in promoting socio cultural progress, the measurement of sustainability, and forms of sustainable development. Indicators have been identified for all three aspects of sustainable tourism development ecological, economic and social. The

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