1st Edition

The Practice of Sustainable Tourism Resolving the Paradox

Edited By Michael Hughes, David Weaver, Christof Pforr Copyright 2015
    326 Pages 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    326 Pages 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Sustainable tourism is a widely used term that has accumulated considerable attention from researchers and policy makers over the past two decades. However, there is still an apparently wide gap between theory and practice in the area. Recent scholarly research has tended to focus on niche areas of alternative tourism rather than address the broader issues and vagaries and paradoxes that appear to plague the broader notion of sustainable tourism. As such, there is a need for a new and pragmatic analysis of sustainable tourism as an overarching idea and how this manifests in practice.

    The Practice of Sustainable Tourism fulfils this need by offering a fresh perspective on sustainable tourism as an umbrella concept with inherent tensions. It presents a way of thinking about tourism based on the notion of finding common ground using the dialectic tradition of philosophy. Dialectics focusses on resolving opposing viewpoints by recognising they have common elements that can be combined into a rational and practical solution over time. As part of this approach, the book examines the strongly apparent tensions within alternative tourism as well as the paradox of continuing growth and other mass tourism related issues. It is divided into three parts, Part I includes chapters discussing the general concept of sustainable tourism, its history, current status and possible futures; Part II includes a range of destination case studies exploring how sustainable tourism has been applied and Part III includes perspectives from the tourism operator view.

    Given the international content and challenging themes, the book will be appealing internationally to students, researchers and academics in the fields of tourism, geography, sustainability and social science.

    1. Introduction  Michael Hughes, Christof Pforr and David Weaver  Part 1: Conceptualising Sustainable Tourism  2. Enlightened Mass Tourism as a ‘Third Generation’ aspiration for the 21st Century David Weaver  3. Tourism Policy for the Pursuit of Sustainability: Discrepancies between Rhetoric and Reality Christof Pforr  4. Promoting inter-disciplinary sustainable tourism  Michael Hughes and Angus Morrison-Saunders  5. The End of Sustainable Tourism? Re-orienting the debate Sanjay Nepal, Stephanie Verkoeyen and Tom Karrow  6. Sustainable tourism – paradoxes, inconsistencies and a way forward? Richard Butler  Part 2: Destination Perspectives  7. Island tourism: Systems modelling for sustainability Jack Carlsen  8. Tourist’s perceptions of community based tourism products for sustainable tourism in Bali, Indonesia Ni Made Ernawati, Ross Dowling and Dale Sanders   9. The governmentality approach to sustainable tourism: Bhutan’s tourism governance policy and planning Simon Teoh 10. Last Chance tourism – a race to be last? Jackie Dawson, Harvey Lemelin, Emma Stewart  and Justin Taillon  11. Sustainable tourism development on Niue: a catch 22?  Christof Pforr and Dirk Reiser  12. An integrated approach to climate change and tourism in an alpine destination: assessing impacts and strategies in the Vinschgau/Venosta valley, Italy Lon-Marie Lun, Marianna Elmi and  Harald Pechlaner  13. Good governance: managing growth and long-term resort destination sustainability and resilience Valerie Sheppard, Rachel Dodds and Peter Williams Part 3: Operator Perspectives  14. Geotourism’s contribution to sustainable tourism Ross Dowling  15. The paradox of adopting tourism ecolabels: What is the problem?  Minjuan Deng-Westphal, Sue Beeton and Alastair Anderson  16. The role of events in creating sustainable tourism destinations  Judith Mair 17. Sustainable tourism – the Rottnest Island experience Roland Mau and John Tedesco Conclusion 18. Paradox as a pervasive characteristic of sustainable tourism: Challenges, opportunities and trade-offs David Weaver, Michael Hughes and Christof Pforr 

    Biography

    Michael Hughes is a senior lecturer in Environmental Science at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. He has a background in environmental science, natural resource management and sustainable tourism.

    David Weaver is Professor of Tourism Research in Griffith University’s Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management on the Gold Coast of Australia, specialising in sustainable tourism, ecotourism and destination development dynamics.

    Christof Pforr is Course Coordinator for Tourism & Hospitality and Group Leader of the Research Focus Area ‘Sustainable and Health Tourism’ with the School of Marketing, Curtin University, Western Australia. His main research interests include tourism policy and planning, sustainable (tourism) development, health tourism, coastal tourism and geotourism as well as destination governance with a specific focus on network management and network analysis.