ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the environment and tourism relationship can be understood from an economic perspective and the use of tourism for wealth creation is reliant upon the use of nature as a resource. Tourists desire to experience a good-quality' environment through participation in tourism thus endowing them with a sense of well-being, typically through aesthetic appreciation and the provision of relaxing surroundings. The environment also performs the function of a waste disposal system for the tourism industry, for example sewage is discharged from hotels into the sea and aircraft release engine emissions into the atmosphere. At the same time nature provides the vital ecosystem services that are essential to the well-being of people and communities that inhabit tourism destinations, including the oxygen, water and food resources that are required for survival. In the latter half of the twentieth century, tourism has had an increasingly significant role to play in global wealth creation and economic development.
