ABSTRACT
Walton (2009, p783) argues that ‘work in tourism studies tends to be present-minded and instrumental in its approaches, schematic rather than grounded or contextualized when gesturing towards the potential significance of change over time’. Our ambitious aim has been to define slow travel from the outset and to present a case as to how this might provide a new form of sustainable tourism development in the future. In order to do this we began with an analysis of the contextual issues and approaches to sustainable development and tourism impact over the past decades. This was achieved through an exploration of impacts at a local destination level and within a wider global context. Even when examined at a destination level, tourism cannot be considered a ‘green’ industry, on several counts. More than this, there is clearly a contestation of the notion that tourism is invariably a positive agent for change.
