ABSTRACT
Leisure, recreation, and tourism are of benefi t to both individuals and societies. The United Nations (UN) recognised this as early as 1948 by adopting its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone ‘has the right to rest and leisure including . . . periodic holidays with pay’. More specifi cally, in 1980 the World Tourism Organisation declared the ultimate aim of tourism to be ‘the improvement of the quality of life and the creation of better living conditions for all peoples’. Such statements would suggest that everyone has the right to demand tourism, but more
recently the UN and UNWTO have tempered their views with the following considerations:
1 The need to ensure that tourism is consumed in a sustainable manner. The World Tourism Organisation’s ‘Global Code of Ethics for Tourism’ was endorsed by the UN in 1999 and designed to ‘. . . minimise the negative impacts of tourism on the environment and on cultural heritage, whilst maximising the benefi ts for residents of tourism destinations’ (WTO 2003).
