Despite owing its origins to the general concept of sustainable development, the
subject of sustainable tourism appears to bavr evolved largely in isolation from the continuing
debate on the meaning of the former. This paper argues that such isolation has resulted in the
emergence of an overly simplistic and inflexible paradigm of sustainable tourism which fails to
account for specific circumstances. It is suggested that the concept of sustainable tourism be
redefined in terms of an over-arching paradigm which incorporates a range of approaches to
the tourism/environment system within destination areas. These approaches are outlined for a
variety of abstract situations with the aim of demonstrating the legitimacy of different perceptions
of sustainable tourism. Keywords: sustainable, tourism development, paradigm,
approaches.