ABSTRACT
Tourism’s relationship to the environment has become increasingly problematic. Long held as an economic justification for conservation and use against competing industrial uses, it is becoming increasingly recognized that tourism leads to the short-and longterm decline of natural capital on local and global scales (Gössling and Hall, 2006). The continued growth in tourism-related emissions and contribution to biodiversity loss has occurred despite widespread reference to the concept of sustainable development in academic and policy circles (Hall, 2011a). The gap between concept use and empirical reality raises fundamental questions as to the prospects of achieving ‘balance’ between the economic, social and environmental goals entailed in sustainable development. ‘Much tourism growth, as with much economic growth in general, is already uneconomic at the present margin as we currently measure it given that it is leading to a clear running down of natural capital’ (Hall, 2010, p. 137). The promise of sustainable tourism has more recently been extended by the prospect of tourism in the ‘green economy’ and the promotion of ‘green growth’ (UNEP, 2011a). Yet, is it really possible to promote economic growth (and potentially visitor growth) over the long-term without damaging the stock of natural capital?
