ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the policies that espouse sustainable tourism principles have been successful in establishing sustainable tourism in their respective destinations by exploring the barriers to the success of those policies. Since the report of the Brundtland Commission there has been a substantial body of literature emerge on the concept of sustainable development. Policy with respect to tourism is generally linked to economic factors such as regional development and is created at different levels in different jurisdictions. The growth and formulation of policies relating to tourism can be tracked over time to show this trend. Policy implementation in the tourism field faces various difficulties including the different definitions of tourism, the source of policy formulation versus the implementation, often unreliable tourism growth predictions and the short-term view of operators within the tourism industry. Power struggles arise in all areas and have impeded policy implementation by all facets of government and industry and across many other sectors as well as tourism.
