There Is No Such Thing as Sustainable Tourism: Re-Conceptualizing Tourism as a Tool for Sustainability

Gianna Moscardo and Laurie Murphy
Additional contact information
Gianna Moscardo: School of Business, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4811, Australia
Laurie Murphy: School of Business, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4811, Australia

Sustainability, 2014, vol. 6, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: Increased global concern about sustainability has placed pressure on businesses to justify the value of their products and services beyond personal profit and to take responsibility for the negative impacts of their activities. Tourism is particularly susceptible to this pressure, given its generally poor track record in terms of negative social, cultural and environmental impacts, and the lack of compelling evidence of benefits for either the individual tourist or destination communities. While the management of tourism impacts and the relationship between tourism and sustainability have been paid considerable attention by tourism academics, there is little evidence of any significant change in tourism practice. This paper will argue that this lack of change reflects problems in the way tourism academics have conceptualized sustainable tourism. After reviewing these problems with sustainable tourism, this paper will offer an alternative framework for sustainable tourism that focuses on the concept of quality-of-life, recognizes the complexity of tourism within local and global systems, adheres to the principles of responsible tourism, and explicitly assesses the value of tourism as one tool, amongst many, for sustainability. One potential application of the framework will be demonstrated with a case study of tourism development on Magnetic Island in Australia.

Keywords: tourism sustainability; quality of life; sustainable tourism; tourism planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/5/2538/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/5/2538/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:6:y:2014:i:5:p:2538-2561:d:35632

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().