Sustainable Tourism: Eco-loving orMarketing Plot?Dr.Adele Ladkin,International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research, School of Service Industries, BournemouthUniversity, Talbot Campus, Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB, UK

A one-day conference entitled `SustainableTourism: Eco-Loving or Marketing Plot?' washeld in the Department of Tourism at theUniversity of Westminster, London, on 8December 1998. The conference attracted over120 participants from the UK and Europe. Theaudience was comprised mainly of academics,and included industry practitioners, consul-tants, public sector representatives, and stu-dents. The conference was organised inseparate sessions of key speakers, with timeallowed for questions and discussions. Inaddition, there was a book exhibition through-out the day provided by the leading publishersof tourism and hospitality texts.The dominant theme of the conference was

to explore the topic of sustainable tourism, andin particular, to question if sustainable tourismreally exists, or whether it is a marketing toolwhich disguises uncontrolled tourism devel-opment. To explore this theme, the day wasdivided into separate sessions, with speakersfrom academia and the industry contributingto the debate. The conference chair, DrDimitrios Buhalis, introduced the four sessionswhich were: building the framework for thestudy of sustainability; the industry view ofsustainability versus marketing; current re-search on sustainability and tourism market-ing; and frameworks and lessons for managingsustainability.Overall, the salient issues raised by the

speakers and the discussions were as follows.

(1) Although the principles of sustainabletourism are being considered by the

industry, there are continuing problemswith how industry can implement sustain-able practices at the practical level.

(2) The focus on the environmental aspect ofsustainability has led to an imbalance inthe way we approach sustainable issues.The economic and social aspects of sus-tainable development should not be ig-nored.

(3) There is a dominance in sustainable tour-ism development research that focuses onthe supply side of tourism. It would beappropriate for research to diversify andexplore the demand-side issues relating tosustainable tourism.

(4) In order to make any progress to imple-menting sustainable tourism, we need tobe able to measure the impact of anytourism development. A fundamental pro-blem is that we have no accurate ways ofmeasuring sustainability.

(5) Although there are numerous examples ofsmall-scale good practice for tourism de-velopment, sustainable tourism has yet totackle the reality of the enormous andsustained growth that is a dominantfeature of the tourism industry.

(6) To date, the distributional aspects ofsustainable tourism have not been ex-plored. In order to begin to tackle the issueof sustainable practices, we need to exam-ine how resources can be utilised forgenerations at both intra- and inter-levels.We need to plan not only for sustainabledevelopment between generations, butalso to manage resources for tourismacross present generations.

In the ®rst session, building a framework for thestudy of sustainable tourism, the main principlesof sustainable tourism were outlined. A com-

* Correspondence to: Dr. A. Ladkin, International Centrefor Tourism and Hospitality Research, School of ServiceIndustries, Bournemouth University.E-mail: aladkin@bournemouth.ac.uk

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 2, 57±63 (2000)

Conference Reports 61

mon theme was that sustainability meansdifferent things for different people, and istherefore dif®cult to de®ne. This problem ofde®nition is still one that dominates thesustainability debate, and is seen as a majorbarrier to workable sustainable practice. Asecond issue relates to the problems concerninghow to measure sustainability. It was arguedthat without developments in measurementtechniques, the implementation of sustainabletourism cannot move forward. Here there was adifference of opinion between those who feelwe can measure sustainability, and those whoadvocate that this is unworkable in practice.The third theme from this session was thesuggestion that we should focus on the demandside of tourism as a way forward for sustainabletourism development, rather than the supplyside, and that sustainable tourism and market-ing should not be seen as a dichotomy. Demandissues indicate a route towards sustainabletourism, and by focusing on demand, sustain-able tourism can be segmented and managedaccording to different markets.The second session, the industry view of

sustainability versus marketing provided anopportunity for the industry representativesto express their views. The main point raisedhere was there exists a continuum of industryresponses to the sustainable tourism challenge,ranging from those who do not even considerthat sustainable practices are worth consider-ing or required, to those who are making everyeffort to implement sustainable practices.These positive measures were seen as thestarting point for an industry that is increas-ingly recognising the need for sustainablepractices. Those at the leading edge of devel-opments are the small tour operators whorecognise the obvious link between sustain-ability, cost-effective operations and market-ing. The role of hotels in implementingsustainable practices was also explored in thissession, with a focus on practical cost-reducingmethods. It was demonstrated that hotels havegone some way to achieving sustainable poli-cies, and methods that reduce costs are becom-ing increasingly attractive to hotel companies.The third session, current research on sustain-

ability and tourism marketing was the presenta-tion of recent academic research in sustainabletourism. Speci®cally, the speakers were focus-

ing on research into eco-tourism. This sectionhad an international perspective, and looked atconsumer behaviour and eco-tourism, eco-tourism and the cultural perspective, andeco-tourism in remote regions of developingcountries. The key issues raised here were ®rst,that eco-tourists can be classi®ed according totheir level of consumer involvement, and thereis a range of elements that in¯uence theirdecision-making process. Second, that despitethe way in which cultures interpret sustainabletourism differently, cross-cultural responses toeco-tourism are found to be similar. Third,using a conceptual framework of entrepre-neurial responses to eco-tourism, an entrepre-neurial approach to the development of eco-tourism was outlined. Given the continuedgrowth in eco-tourism products, this sessiondemonstrated the continued importance ofinnovative research into this area.In the ®nal session, frameworks and lessons for

managing sustainability, the themes of environ-mental indicators and a new framework formarketing were discussed. Concerning envir-onmental indicators, the salient argument wasthat the measurement of tourism impacts arehighly in¯uenced by who undertake themeasurement. Different approaches yield dif-ferent results, which can be manipulated tosuit speci®c needs. Therefore, it was arguedthat the best practice for measurement wouldbe to take a holistic view, to always start themeasurement with a baseline, and to take along-term view. This was followed by apresentation of the myths and realities ofsustainable tourism, with the overt messagethat sustainable tourism is a fallacy, and hasachieved nothing despite the years of researchand debate. Finally, a framework for sustain-able destination marketing was presentedwhich argued that we should reject marketingin its present form and promote reality and asense of place at each destination.The lessons to be drawn for sustainable

tourism from this one-day event are essentiallytwofold. The ®rst is that despite the years ofresearch and discussion concerning sustain-able tourism development, there is still muchto be done. In a sense, nothing new is beingproposed, and we need to ®nd solutions to anumber of fundamental problems before ad-vances can be made. Accurate and workable

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 2, 57±63 (2000)

62 Conference Reports

measurement techniques are of prime impor-tance here and represent a signi®cant wayforward. Secondly, despite this dif®culty, thereis evidence of a number of ways in which thedifferent aspects of the tourism industry areresponding to sustainability issues. Even ifthese efforts are still in their infancy, they mustbe regarded as positive steps forward.The evidence presented at this conference

indicates that there is still the same division ofopinion between those who feel that sustain-able tourism has made admirable steps toaddress the issue of sustainable development,and those who feel we are making little

progress, other than to pay lip service to thedemand for sustainable tourism products.Whatever stance you take, one thing is certain,sustainable tourism has proved by its long-evity that it is more than just a passing fad. Thedebate is here to stay.

For Further Information Contact:Dr Dimitros BuhalisUniversity of Westminster35 Marylebone RoadLondon NW1 5LS, UKEmail: buhalis@westminster.ac.uk

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 2, 57±63 (2000)

Conference Reports 63