Following the popularizatior~ of sustainable development as an
environmental management concept in the late 80s (WCED 1987), a
growing proportion of the tourism research literature has focused on
the principles and practice of sustainable tourism development. The
term “sustainable tourism” has come to represent and encompass a
set of principles, policy prescriptions, and management methods
which chart a path for tourism development such that a destination
area’s environmental resource base (including natural, built, and cultural
features) is protected for future development (Lane 1994). However,
this dominant paradigm has recently been criticized as being
too parochial, or tourism-centric, in so far as it fails to provide a
conceptual vehicle for policy formulation which explicitly connects
the concerns of tourism sustainability with those of sustainable development
more generally (Wall 1993; Wheeller 1993). In other words,
the concerns of sustainable tourism have become too far removed
from those of its parental concept, resulting in a gap such that principles
and policies of “sustainable” tourism do not necessarily contribute
to those of sustainable development