Answer

Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism refers to a situation where the tourism destination is able to host the tourist without getting depleted and at the same time provides good quality service. Sustainable tourism can be measured in different ways namely destination carrying capacity, destination management, and strategic planning. Destination carrying capacity refers to the ability of a tourism site to absorb tourists without the services deteriorating in quality. This is important because it determines the future of the tourism site. This is because if a client gets uncompromised quality of service in a particular destination, he may be encouraged to plan another visit or may even invite others to visit the site. Also, if the capacity for a site is exceeded some of the facilities offered by the destination may get over used which may cause malfunction or even total failure. The carrying capacity of a destination can be viewed in terms of Biological carrying capacity. This includes the physical part of the site. It may consist of both the flora and fauna in the site. Physical carrying capacity refers to the available finite space for the facilities. This may includes things like parking spaces, covers in restaurants and bed spaces. Social carrying capacity seeks to explain the acceptable level of development between the community around a tourist destination site and tourists.

Destination Management

Destination management is all about making the place more habitable for the visitor. This involves creating an environment where visitors would love to come as well as marketing it. The destination management ensures that the site is sustainable, the tourism benefits the host community, competitive and delivery of quality services to the tourist. Strategic planning entails ensuring a promising future for the destination. It ensures that there are both short term measures and long term measures for sustainability.

Sustainable Mass Tourism

Sustainable mass tourism being the desired and impending result for most destinations faces the challenge of limited natural resources. However the global financial crisis, climate change information understanding, institutionalization of environmentalism and Information technology all facilitate the emergence of sustainability as a societal norm. Sustainable mass tourism is occurring along three different paths. Namely: the organic path, the incremental path and the hybrid or induced path.

The organic path: The organic path also referred to as the market driven path describes the conventional tourism life cycle model of Butler

Incremental path: The incremental path also known as the regulation driven path describes a path in which a deliberate moves to increase the carrying capacities to accommodate more visitors.

 Hybrid path: The hybrid ‘induced’ path is about well planned mega-resorts conceived as growth points. Each model is invested with its own specific planning and management implications.

There several factor that are facilitating convergence towards sustainable mass tourism. These factors are discussed as below.

Sustainability

Through the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN, UNEP, & WWF, 1980) and Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987) the idea of sustainability has become very popular in tourism sector. The latter report encouraged a referentially inter-generational definition of ‘sustainable development’. The World Travel and Tourism Council ( WTTC, 2010) has put sustainability and respect for local environment at the same level. Bearing in mind all tourism involves cost Weaver (2006) relates sustainability with strategic management that endeavors to minimize the cost of a particular activity while at the same time maximizing the attendant benefits universally. The definition of sustainable mass tourism here takes in to account that the identified costs and benefits are context-dependent thus going beyond the status quo connotations of Brundland. It embraces Hunter’s (1997) idea of sustainability paradigm which adapts strong and weak outcomes.

Putting all this into consideration sustainable mass tourism takes much weight in addressing tourism as thing of the present that requires sustainability and maximum productivity globally. The suggestion that contemporary tourism is converging towards sustainable mass tourism especially where sufficient demand and social and economic needs are met is likely to invite questions only because of the long held relationship the mass tourism and lack of sustainability as argued in some academic circles. However, even if this was sufficient such a challenge can only be resolved through a transformational approach involving radical innovation.

Willingness to adopt pro-growth strategies may not ensure that local attractions or accessibility are sufficient to sustain a growth trajectory from CAT or DAT to SMT and Weaver (2000a) argues that most places will persist in CAT due to low attractiveness, poor accessibility or instability. Nevertheless, the landscape of mass tourism must necessarily expand to accommodate the prospect of 10 billion tourists by 2020. Coastal and alpine areas are strongly implicated, as are metropolitan hinterlands and existing tourism cities (Weaver, 2005), locations along major highways and rivers (Prideaux & Cooper, 2009), geopolitical border areas (Timothy, 1995), protected areas, and areas of agricultural production. A qualification is that ‘mass’ tourism does not necessarily entail the absolute levels of intensity associated with Waikiki or Benidorm, but also intensity relative to local community size, as measured by host/guest ratio.

Instability also merits reassessment. Though assumed to dissuade tourism, UMT-stage instability, as argued above, may be a catalyst for pro-sustainability mobilization. In addition, geopolitical and social instability are long-term tourism stimulants. Weaver (2000b) describes the ‘tourism war dividend’ that World War Two and the US Civil War have generated for intensely affected places such as Gettysburg and Normandy. Less intensive instability, exhibited for example by the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, also promotes mass tourism activity in otherwise obscure locations such as Robben Island (Strange & Kempa, 2003). Hence, whilst it is tempting to assert that the propositions in this paper apply only to places where sufficient levels of attractiveness and stability are maintained, it is interesting to speculate on a future where most places are positioned as sustainable mass tourism destinations or components thereof.

Taking into account the case study sustainable tourism has worked for Vermont to be able to serve her clients sustainably. This has resulted in well served clients as it can be seen from the improved visitation. The carrying capacity, management as well as strategic planning have been well coordinated to realize such a growth. However at the same time such growth can be achieved without allowing sustainable mass tourism to take its path. This is observed when Vermont does not infringe the role of the community and the environment in shaping the tourism destination. We can see a wholesome community with schools, churches among other facilities that signify a wholesome community. Vermont through contemporary development of tourism dynamics has positioned sustainable mass tourism as an emergent and desired result for destinations. This is attained through amalgamation of sustainability and the great need for support for growth. This convergence towards this goal is attained through organic, hybrid and incremental paths. Therefore it is clear that sustainable mass tourism is paving way for most future tourist work to be embraced by any tourist organization.