CONCLUSION
The isolation of sustainable tourism research from the continuing
debate on the meaning and implications of sustainable development more generally has resulted in the emergence of a dominant paradigm
of the former which is shallowly defined. However attractive it is to
view and describe sustainable tourism as a destination area tourism/
environment system which balances often competing aspects, such
rigidity offers little in the way of guidance which is sensitive to
location-specific factors, such as environmental characteristics and
the extent and nature of existing tourism development. Sustainable
tourism research would benefit from a closer inspection of the broader
sustainable development literature which frequently demonstrates
greater flexibility in charting potential development pathways. It
could also benefit from a more penetrating appreciation of the complexities
involved in human/environment interactions allowing for
more detailed analyses of the interactions between economic sectors,
the degree of precaution to be adopted in environmental management,
potential environmental management techniques, and the
extent to which these should be employed according to the degree of
efficiency sought in the utilization of natural resources. A conceptual
reconnection with general sustainable development research offers
greater maturity for the formulation of policies of sustainable tourism.
Based upon redefining the concept of sustainable tourism according
to the current spectrum of sustainable development interpretations,
at least four interpretations or models of sustainable tourism can
be advanced as conceptual vehicles for tourism development policy
formulation. Although described in abstract terms, it is suggested that
these constitute more meaningful guidance for tourism development
given the variety of antecedent conditions at actual or potential destination
areas. The sustainable tourism approaches can be labeled
as tourism imperative, product-led, environment-led, and neotenous
tourism. In the most simplistic terms, one can consider these in terms
of how tourism might contribute to distinctive positions within the
sustainable development spectrum, ranging from very weak to very
strong interpretations.
This paper has been written, however, not so much as a means for
the postulation of concrete prescriptions for sustainable tourism, but
more as an attempt to open up much needed debate on how sustainable
tourism should be considered under different circumstances.
The key point to emerge from the preceding analyses is that sustainable
tourism must be regarded as an adaptive paradigm capable of
addressing widely different situations, and articulating different goals
in terms of the utilization of natural resources. Clearly, much more
clarification is still required, not least, who should decide on the
most appropriate pathway of sustainable tourism development? It is
extremely difficult to imagine the formulation and implementation
of any approach to sustainable tourism in the absence of strong local
(including regional) authority planning and development control, and
without the involvement of local communities in the planning process
to some degree. This latter point may, however, be particularly problematic
given that ecological conservation objectives may not be compatible
with the desires of local communities (Stocking and Perkin
1992) and the various levels of public participation possible (Pretty
and Pimbert 1995). It may well be that different levels of community involvement in tourism development decision-making are appropriate
for different pathways of sustainable tourism.