| Summary: | With the emergence of the sustainable development paradigm in the 1980s and the growth of the travel industry it seemed inevitable that the two would coincide at one point or another. Emerging as a reaction to mass tourism and environmental destruction, sustainable tourism development is a combination of two main schools of thought; development theory and environmental sustainability. Once assumed to be a passing fad, two decades on the concept has gained widespread acceptance both within the academic circles and governments. Since the early 1990s, the sustainable tourism paradigm and its practical applicability has become the subject of much debate. Although it is widely acknowledged that sustainable tourism is impractical at macro level, it has long been thought that the principles of sustainable tourism development could be successfully applied at micro level. This thesis aims to contest this statement and demonstrate that small scale sustainable tourism development is just as unattainable. Drawing upon existing literature, it aims to weave together tourism and development theory and examine the links and discrepancies between the principles of sustainable tourism development and the wider framework of sustainable development. In doing so it reveals a number of fundamental weaknesses which undermine the viability of sustainable tourism development. In addition to examining the discrepancies and contradictions of the concept, the thesis also forms a link between the principles and practices of sustainable tourism development and a destinations area ‘life cycle’, thereby; providing a framework for its analysis. Using a sustainable tourism development cycle model (STDC), it will show how as a destination area passes through the various stages of tourism development it moves further away from the principles of sustainable development and consequently fails to meet the fundamental principles of sustainable development. Built upon and adapted from Butler’s (1980) ‘tourism area life cycle’ theory, the STDC model questions the sustainability of a tourism destination area and evaluates its progress in implementing the principles of sustainable tourism development as it evolves.
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