ABSTRACT
Implicit in many perspectives upon sustainable tourism – and, indeed, on tourism development in general – is the view that planning has a key role to play in assuring orderly and appropriate patterns of development and, within this process, resolving many of the conflicts that such development may generate (Gunn, 1994; Inskeep, 1991). Tourism planning provides a primary mechanism through which government policies for tourism may be implemented (Hall, 2000) and, in its different forms, can be a mechanism for delivering a range of more specific outcomes. These will include:
l the integration of tourism alongside other economic sectors; l the direction and control of physical patterns of development; l the conservation of scarce or important resources; l the active promotion and marketing of destinations; l the creation of harmonious social and cultural relations between tourists and local
people.
