ABSTRACT
Sustainable tourism in its many forms might be thought of as a highly appropriate land use to be integrated into the rural landscape of Europe, and indeed, in some respects this is true. In a number of situations, however, what might pass for sustainable tourism can be seen to be incompatible in varying degrees with the modern forms of rural land use that now pervade Europe (Sharpley 2001). Tourism in rural areas goes under a variety of names, rural tourism, agritourism and farm tourism, for example, and has changed significantly over recent decades (Butler 1998), as have views of the ‘appropriate’ form and function of rural areas (Halfacree 1997). Legislation and policies have resulted in different priorities and economic values for land and land use in rural areas, some of which have been beneficial to tourism, and some of which have tended to be contrary to the goals of sustainable tourism (Cloke 1999).
