Sustainability of Tourism and Ecotourism

Sustainable tourism is an aspect of sustainable development which was largely ignored until the mid 1990’s. The industry is one of the world’s largest growing, and generates considerable income and employment for populations. To ensure the Australian tourism industry moves towards sustainability and has a long term future it is vital environmental factors are seriously considered along with economic and social factors. Barriers to sustainability include a general lack of knowledge by the community, pockets of isolated research and too few guidelines and monitoring processes in place. With improved training and education in sustainable development practices for those working and planning within the industry, collaborative research amongst interested parties such as tertiary institutions, government bodies, tour operators and community organisations then better sustainability practices are likely to result. A promising development in Australia is the formation of the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism which has strong links with a world wide programme for sustainable travel and tourism known as Green Globe. This programme has great potential as it provides affiliation, benchmarking and certification for companies, communities and protected areas, so that participants are poised to make significant contributions to sustainability. Acknowledgements Many thanks to; Jack Carlsen from Curtin University, Steve Crawford and Claire Savage from the W.A Tourism Commission and Rod Quartermaine from the Department of Conservation and Land Management who willingly took the time to speak with me about this issue.