Globalization has become today s buzzword. It has also become a battle ground for two radically opposed groups. There are the antiglobalists, who fear globalization and stress only its downside, seeking therefore powerful intervention aimed at taming, if not (unwitting) crippling it. Then there are the globalists (a class to which I belong) who celebrate globalization instead, emphasize its upside, while seeking only to ensure that its few rough edges be handled through appropriate policies that serve to make globalization yet more attractive.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Sustainable Tourism is vital reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexities associated with sustainable tourism development, and how government and industry have responded to the challenges the concept poses. The major areas addressed in this edited volume are: * perspectives and issues associated with the concept of sustainable tourism development * accreditation, education and interpretation, including specific examples such as Green Globe 21, the European Blue Flag Campaign and the WWF's PAN Parks Programme * sustainable tourism case studies of tourist destination regions, natural areas and tourism enterprises drawn from Africa, Australia, the South Pacific, North America, South-east Asia and the Caribbean An impressive international editorial team has combined to present in this text not only a variety of perspectives on sustainable tourism development, but also significant insights into barriers, challenges and current industry and government responses to it in various parts of the globe. 'Sustainable Tourism' will be a welcome addition to the libraries of tourism industry professionals, individuals involved in the management of natural areas; tourism policy makers; tourism academics; and students with an interest in the future sustainability of tourism and the industry that supports it.

Throughout the world, providers of tourism services are under pressure to balance the need for economic growth with the need to conserve natural resources. This book offers an introduction to the concepts of sustainable tourism.

Drawing on a wealth of examples, this work traces the inception of sustainability within environmentalism and its extension into the realism of socio-cultural and economic thinking, policy and practice. This second edition has been extensively updated to firmly re-situate it in the development literature. There are also major new sections on: Third world development and tourism; the emergence of pro-poor tourism; the UN International Year for Ecotourism; and a new case study on a small-scale ecotourism program in Nicaragua.

"If unequal opportunities are large within many countries they are truly staggering on a global scale", so concludes the World Bank’s 2006 World Development Report. It is a global unevenness within which the barriers to in-migration of Third World migrants to wealthy first world nations go ever higher, whilst the barriers to travel in the reverse direction are all but extinct. So how exactly can tourism contribute to narrowing this glaring inequality and gap between the rich and the poor? Are ever expanding tourism markets – and the new, responsible, forms of tourism in particular – a smoke free, socio-culturally sensitive form of human industrialisation? Is alternative tourism really a credible lever for lifting poverty stricken countries out of the mire of global inequality, setting them on the right track to ‘development’, and making poverty history? Tourism and Sustainability critically explores and challenges what have emerged as the most significant universal geopolitical norms of the last half century – development, globalization and sustainability – and through the lens of new forms of tourism demonstrates how we can better understand and get to grips with the rapidly changing new global order. This third edition has been extensively updated and includes new material on: poverty reduction, livelihoods and pro-poor tourism new forms of tourism in cities continuing growth of the fair trade movement tourism’s contribution to climate change volunteer and ‘gap’ tourism affect of disasters on new tourism. Drawing on a range of examples from across the Third World, Tourism and Sustainability illustrates the social, economic and environmental conditions for the growth of new tourism. The book is original in its assessment of tourism through the lens of power – who holds it; how it is used; and who benefits from the exercise of power in the tourism industry. Additionally, the analysis is an interdisciplinary one and the book will therefore be useful to students of Human Geography, Environmental Sciences and Studies, Politics, Development Studies, Anthropology and Business Studies as well as Tourism itself.

Introduces students to the key concepts and challenges in this topical area by exploring and challenging the notion of sustainability and its relationship to contemporary tourism in the developing world.