INTRODUCTION

As manifested in the Butler sequence, the destination lifecycle concept

suggests that tourism degrades destinations and ultimately destroys itself
if managers implement no remedial or precautionary measures during the
development of the sector. The desire to avoid these negative impacts and
still derive positive economic, sociocultural and environmental impacts
from tourism has given rise to the concept of sustainable tourism, or
tourism that occurs within the accepted carrying capacities of a particular
destination. This chapter on sustainable tourism begins by examining the
nature of paradigms and paradigm shifts, and considers the possibility that
the dominant scientific paradigm and its associated environmental
perspective are in the process of being modified or replaced by a more
environmentally sensitive green paradigm` that emphrises the concept of
sustainable development (section 11.2) This provides a context for
understanding the emergence of sustainable tourism as discussed in
section 11.3. After outlining potential key indicators of sustainable
tourism and the shortcomings of indicator monitoring. we examine
sustainability in in the context of mass tourism in section 11.4. The
reasons for the tourism industrys interest in sustainability are considered,
along with associated practices and measures. A critique of these
developments is also provided. Section 11.5 focuses on 'alternative
tourism' and its various manifestations, as well as the problems that
potentially accompany this small-scale counterpoint to mass tourism.
Section 11.6 examines ecotourism, while section 11.7 considers strategies
that potentially improve the sustainability of destinations. It concludes
with a broad context model of destination development scenarios that
integrates these concepts and incorporates the Butler sequence.
PARADIGM SHIFTT
Defined in its broadest sense, a paradigm is the entire constellation of
beliefs. assumptions and values that underlie the wav in which a society

interprets reality at a given point in time. A paradigm can therefore also be

described as a `worldview` or `cosmology`. According to Kuhn (l962), a
paradigm shift is likely to occur when the prevailing paradigm is faced
with contradictions and anomalies in the real world that it cannot explain
or accommodate. In response to this crisis, one or more alternative
paradigms appear that seemingly account for these contradictions and
anomalies, and one of these gradually emerges as the new dominant
paradigm for that society. The period from when the contradictions are
first apparent to the replacement of the old paradigm with the competing
paradigm can last for many decades, or even centuries. It is also important
to note that the replacement of one dominant paradigm by another does not
usually involve the complete destruction or disappearence of the formerly
dominant paradigm. Rather the latter can persist as a co-existent
worldview retained by some groups or individuals. As well, the new
dominant paradigm often incorporates compatible (or at least noncontradictory) aspects of the old paradigm, and may even emerge as a
synthesis between the old paradigm and other radically opposing
worldviews that initially arise.
11.2.1 Dominant Western environmental paradigm
Such a paradigm shift occurred in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During this time, the Catholic Church was dominant, and
its theological worldview held that the world was a f1at planet located in
the centre of the universe, and that humans were created spontaneously in
the image of God. This theological paradigm, however, was challenged by
the findings of Christopher Columbus and other explorers, and by the
discoveries of scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo. Gradually, the
theological paradigm was replaced by a scientific paradigm that offered
coherent and logical explanations for the radical new evidence uncovered
by these pioneers. Fundamentally, the scientific paradigm perceives the
universe as a giant machine, not unlike an automobile, that can be

disassembled in order to see how it operates. Once these subcomponents

and their functions are perfectly understood, then future events within the
universe can be predicted with certainty. Underlying the scientific
paradigm is the scientific method, which reveals knowledge through a
rigorously objective procedure of hypothesis formulation and empirical
testing (see chapter 12).
By the nineteenth century, science was established as the dominant
paradigm within Europe. and then uithin the world as a whole through the
colonial expansion of England, France, Spain and other major European
powers. Accompanying the scientific paradigm was growth in the
anthropocentric belief that humans are the centre of all things and are
apart from and superior to the natural environment. The latter in this
perspective is seen as having no intrinsic value, but only extrinsic value in
relation to its perceived usefulness for people. Thus, some types of
woodland such as conifer plantations came to be valued because of their
usefulness as a fuel and source of timber, while swamps were assigned
little or no value, as they are perceived to be economically unproductive.
Related to this is the belief in progress`, or the idea that the
application of science and technology will result in a continuous
improvement in the quality of human life. Ideologically, the parallel view
that progress can best be attained through a growth-oriented capitalist
economic system became widely accepted in countries such as the United
Kingdom and the United States. This perspective emphasises the role of
individual incentive and competitive free market forces that determine the
value (defined in terms of contribution to GDP) of various elements of the
natural environment, such as oil (high) and swampland (low). These
natural environment-related aspects of the scientific paradigm are
described by Knill (1991) as comprising the dominant Western
environmental paradigm.

11.2.2 Contradictions in the dominant Western environmental

paradigm
During the twentieth century, and especially since 1950, the dominant
Western environmental paradigm (and the scientific paradigm more
broadly) experienced a crisis similar to what the Catholic Church
underwent in the sixteenth century, with many anomalies and
contradictions being identified that challenge its fundamental assumptions
about progress and nature. Ironically, many of these inconsistencies were
revealed by science itself. For example, the held of physics demonstrated
the apparently random and chaotic behaviour of subatomic particles, and
revealed that the very act of observation can change the nature of these
particles (Faulkner & Russell 1997). Such findings call into doubt the
universal applicability of the objective, mechanistic, deterministic
worldview proffered by the dominant Western environmental paradigm
and science more generally.
At the same time, research in biology, geographv and ecologv
shows that present levels of economic development and growth. deriving
from notions of progress and dominance over nature. may be inconsistent
with the worlds environmental carrying capacitv. Processes and events
that support this contention include :

a series of high-profile endronmental disasters, including the Torrey

Canyon oil tanker spill off the coast of the United Kingdom in 1967,
the part meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the
United States in 1979, the gas leak from the Union Carbidge pesticide
plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984, the nuclear power plant meltdown at
Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 and the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill off
Alaska in 1989, and Hurricane Katrinas impact on New Orleans in

2005
Escalation in anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change
Accelerating ozone depletion, especially in polar regions
Increased incidence of dangerous viral and bacterial mutations
Rampant desertification and deforestation

Some supporters of the dominant Western environmental

paradigm, described as technological utopians, argue that technology
will solve all these problems. Critics, however, point out that many of the
problems are themselves caused by the same modern technologies (such as
nuclear power and genetic manipulation) that claim to address other
problems, such as depleted fossil fuels and increased population growth.
Critics also suggest that the damage to the environment may soon progress
to a point of irreversibilitv, if this is not alreadv the case.
The dominant Western environmental paradigm and tourism
The tourism sector has also been implicated in these developmens. The
criticisms of contemporary mass tourism raised in chapters 8 and 9, and
the cautionary platform that articulated these criticisms. are reactions
against a prevalent pattern of large-scale tourism development that is an
ourcome of the dominant Western environmental paradigm. As
encapsulated in the Butler sequence (section 10.2), this critique holds that
the emphasis on unlimited frees market growth produces the contradiction
of initially desirable tourist destinations that eventually self-destruct as
they become overcrowde, polluted and crime-ridden, and hence
increasingly less desirable to both tourists and residents.
The growing crisis in the dominant Western environmental
paradigm is, therefore, resulting in the articulation of a competing
worldview that can be described as the green paradigm (Knill 1991). It is
premature to claim in any definitive way that our society is now in the
midst of a paradigm shift, but evidence of such a transition is mounting
across a growing array of sectors, including tourism (see below). Figure
11.2 depicts the contrasting characteristics that are associated with the
dominant Western environmental paradigm and the emerging green
paradigm. Both are depicted as ideal types (see page 324), and it should be
reiterated that any dominant paradigm ofthe future is likely to emerge as a
synthesis of these contrasting characteristics.

Figure 11.2

The dominant Western environmental paradigm and the

green paradigm as ideal types

Dominant Western environmental paradigm

Green paradigm

Humans are separate from nature

Humans are part of nature

Humans are superior to nature

Humans are equal with the rest of nature

Reality is objective

Reality is subjective

Reality can be compartmentalised

Reality is integrated and holistic

The future is predictable

The future is unpredictable

The universe has order

The universe is chaotic

The importance of rationality and reason

The importance of intuition

Hierarchical structures

Consensus-based structures

Competitive structures

Cooperative structures

Emphasis on the individual

Emphasis on the communal

Facilitation through capitalism

Facilitation through socialism

Linear progress and growth

Maintenance of a steady state

Use of hard technology

Use of soft technology

Patriarchal and male

Matriarchal and female

Sustainable development
A hallmark in the emergence of the green paradigm was the explicit
recognition of sustainable development as a guiding concept. Although the
term was introduced in the early 1980s, it was the release of the
Brundtland Report (Our Common Future) in 1987 that launched this idea
into the fore front of the environmental debate. The Brundtland Report
proposed the following definition of sustainable development:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the

present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs (WCED 1987, p. 43).
This simple and enticing definition has gained widespread support

from all sides of the emironmental debate, and was employed as a central
theme in the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 and its resultant Agenda 21
manifesto (Miller & Kaae 1993) as well as in the sequel Johannesbrug
Summit of 2002 (Rio + l0). However, a closer scrutiny of the term

reveals a number of difficulties. Some critics suggest that the term is an

oxymoron. or an essentially contested concept` (Hall l998. p. 13) with
sustainability' (with its steady state implications) and development (with
its growth irnplications) being mutually exclusive. The widespread support
that the term enjoys, therefore, may simply reflect the ease with which it
can be appropriated by the supporters of various ideologies or platforms to
perpetuate and legitimise their own perspective (McKercher 1993). A
resultant danger according to Mowforth and Munt (1998) and others, is
that the term can be used for greenwashing purposes; that is, to convey an
impression of environmental responsibility for a product or business that
does not deserve the reputation for it.
Others, however, regard the semantic flexibility of sustainable
development as an asset that recognises and is responsive to the
complexity and diversity of the real world. Hunter (1997), for example,
describes sustainable development as an adaptive paradigm that
accommodates both weak and strong manifestations. Weak sustainable
development strategies are relevant to heavily modified environments (e.g.
urban cores, intensively farmed areas), where human quality of life is a
more realistic and relevant goal than, say, preserving rare species and their
undisturbed habitats. In contrast to this anthropocentric approach, strong
sustainable development strategies that emphasise biocentric goals such as
the latter are warranted in relatively undisturbed environments such as
Antarctica and most ofthe Amazon basin.
11.3 USTAINABLE TOURISM
The term sustainable tourism became popular following the release of the
Brundtland Report. The term at its most basic represents a direct
application of the sustainable development concept. Sustainable tourism,
in this context, is tourism that meets the needs of present generations
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. More commonly, sustainable tourism is regarded as tourism

managed in such a way that it does not exceed the environmental, social,
cultural or economic carrying capacity of a given destination. Weaver
(2006) adds the caveat that even responsible operators may inadvertently
operate on occasion in an unsustainable way, in which case the litmus test
for a sustainable tourism operator is the willingness to redress the problem
as soon as it is made apparent. Weaver also suggests that the definition
should incorporate the need for operators to be financially sustainable,
since tourism that is not financially viable is not likely to survive for long,
no matter how viable it is from an environmental or sociocultural
perspective. As with sustainable development, the term sustainable
tourism is susceptible to appropriation by those pursuing a particular
political agenda (see section 11.3,5), but is also amenable to weak and
strong interpretations that adapt to different kinds of destinations.
11.3.1 Indicators
Whether perceived from a weak or strong perspective, criteria must be
selected and monitored to determine whether sustainable tourism is
present in a destination or not. The first step is to identify a set of
appropriate indicators, or variables that provide information about the
status of some phenomenon (in this case, sustainability), so that tourism
and affiliated sectors can be managed accordingly (Hamilton 8c Attwater
1997). Since the early 1990s, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) has
played a lead role in identifying and road testing tourism-related
indicators, recommending a basic management framework of 11 practical
core 'indicators that is deemed relevant to any destination (see table 11.l).
In addition, it has identified a variety of supplementary specialised
indicators that can be added to the management frameworks of relevant
destinations such as beach resorts (levels of beach erosion and beach use
intensity [persons per metre of accessible beach]) and managed wildlife
parks (human population in park and surrounding area, amount of
poaching activity) (WTO 1996).

Table 11.1 WTO care indicators of sustainable tourism

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

INDIKCATOR
Site protection
Stress
Use intensity
Social impact
Development control

6. Waste management
7. Planning process
8. Critical ecosystems
9. Consumer satisfaction
10. Local satisfaction
11. Tourism contribution to
local economy

SPECIFIC MEASURES
Category of site protection according to IUCN index
Tourist numbers visiting site (per annum/peak month)
Intensity of use in peak period (persons per hectare)
Ratio of tourists to locals (peak period and over time)
Existence of environmental review procedure or formal
controls over development of site and use densities
Percentage of sewage from site receiving treatment (also
structural limits of other infrastructural capacity on site, such as
water supply)
Existence of organised regional plan for tourist destination
region
Number of rare or endangered species
Level of satisfaction by visitors (questionnaire based)
Level of satisfaction by visitors (questionnaire based)
Proprtion of total economic activity generated by tourism onyl

Source: WTO (1996)

Challenges of indicators
Even if it is assumed that the WTO framework provides an indicator
selection that adequately reflects the diversity of variables that need to be
considered by destination managers, several operational challenges must
still be confronted, including:

Fuzzy boundaries of complex tourism systems. which makes it difficult

to determine how much a change in an indicator is related to tourism
directly (e.g. construction of a resort), indirectly (eg. construction of a
road to a resort) or in an induced way (eg. construction of housing for
workers in the resort), if at all (see chapter 9). Complex systems also
produce the possibility of discontinuities between cause and effect:
through both time and space. For examplc, a negative impact in a
destination (eg. E. coli appearing in the water) may be caused by
unsustainable tourism activity that occurred one month earlier 50

kilometres upstream.
Incompatibility between the timeframe of indicator monitoring, which
is long term, and the timelines of the political process that supports
monitoring, which is short term and unpredictable. Budgetary
fluctuations and the election of new political parties, accordingly, can

result in changes to monitoring methodologies, the indicators

monitored and so on, thereby complicating the long-term tracking of

patterns.
Nonlinear relationships between cause and effect, so that a given input
into a system does not necessarily result in a given output that can be
reliably extrapolated into the future. This is illustrated by the
avalanche effect, in which a small input that caused no apparent
problems in the past (e.g. a snowflake), acts unpredictably as a catalyst

or trigger for massive change in the system (eg. an avalanche).

Lack of knowledge about the benchmark and threshold values that
indicate sustainability for a particular destination A benchmark is a
value against which the performance of an indicator can be assessed
(e.g. it may be determined in a particular ecosystem that at least 50 per
cent of the area should be occupied by relatively undisturbed habitat
for that eco system to remain viable). The benchmark may be the same
as a threshold, which is a critical value or value range beyond which
the carrying capacity is being exceeded (e.g. if tourist density exceeds

1.7 persons per metre for more than one hour at a particular beach).
Potential incompatibility between environmental and social or cultural
sustainability. For example, the creation of a new high-order protected
area geared towards ecotourism might result in a more sustainable out
come for WTO variable #1 (site protection) but unsustainable outcomes
for variable #10 (local satisfaction) as local residents express their
anger over being displaced from their traditional tribal lands and
hunting grounds to accommodate tourists. This raises the possibility of
mixed assessments in indicator performance (eg. five indicate
sustainability and five do not), making it difficult to make an overall
assessment of the sustainability of tourism in that destination.
Because of the uncerzainties and complexities associated with

indicators, it is perhaps impossible to determine with complete certainty

whether a destination is sustainable, as Weaver (2006) suggests. More

prudent is to assess that an apparently successful destination appears to be

sustainable in so far as it conforms to best practice knowledge. In any
case, the effort of pursuing and assessing sustainability is clearly
worthwhile, since to abandon the effort is to virtually guarantee an
unsustainable outcome.