ABSTRACT
The key to sustainable tourism growth is to manage the destination effectively within a given natural, built, or cultural environment in order to provide benefi ts to the local population, to enrich the visit of the tourist, and to preserve the tourism products for future generations to enjoy. Natural areas must be preserved and fl ora and fauna protected. Customs and traditions must not be discarded and privacy and dignity must be maintained. 1
As in times past, one of the strongest motivations for travel today is interest in the natural environment and in the heritage, arts, history, language, customs, and cultures of people locally and in other lands. The opportunity to observe how others live, think, and interact, socially and within their environment, exerts a powerful attraction for many visitors. Travelers may seek to experience a locale’s arts, sculpture, architecture, celebrations and festivals, or cultural interests in food, drink, music, or other special activities of travel, tourism, and hospitality. The attraction may be a built environment with signifi cant historic buildings or unique museums, or the natural environment, with a beautiful landscape, pleasant seashore, a magnifi cent mountain, a lovely forest, the fl ora and fauna of the area, or simply the social interactions of human beings in their local surroundings. It is this aspect of the environment – natural habitats, built structures, culture, heritage, history, and social interactions – that, with effective policies, sound planning, and good management, will sustain tourism into the future. 2 Edgell (2006) noted:
Responsibly managed tourism enhances and enriches natural, heritage and culture values and embraces the need to preserve them so that the community and visitor
have a quality tourism experience now and in the future . . . Sustainable tourism, properly managed, can become a major vehicle for the realization of humankind’s highest aspirations in the quest to achieve economic prosperity while maintaining social, cultural, and environmental integrity. 3
Today, tourism is recognized as one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Within contemporary tourism, growth in sustainable tourism is moving to the forefront of interest in tourism policy, planning, and management. Such rapid changes, and concurrent development practices, have put particular pressure on sustainable tourism planning, policy and management. The key tenet with respect to sustainable tourism is to understand that tourism experiences may be positive, or in some circumstances negative, and to recognize when there is a need for strategic planning, policy guidance, and management practices to ensure that the continued growth of tourism will allow for balanced and positive tourism experiences. In effect, sustainable tourism is a part of an overall shift that recognizes that orderly economic growth, combined with concerns for the environment and quality-of-life social values, offers the best future for the tourism industry. 4 The management of all resources in such a way that economic and sociocultural concerns are fulfi lled is an important aspect of the managing of sustainable tourism in the new millennium.
