6 Criteria often used for sustainability in tourism Is the lodge, reserve or tour:

Box 4.6 Criteria often used for sustainability in tourism Is the lodge, reserve or tour:

1 Sustainable? • environmentally • socially • culturally • economically

2 Educational?

3 Locally participatory?

4 An aid to conservation?

of sustainability and, as the last section has illustrated, it is not definable except in terms of the context, control and position of those who are defining it. And as Box 4.6 points out, the notion of sustainability has many ramifications. These are briefly examined in the following subsections and discussed further at various points in later chapters.

Ecological sustainability

The condition of ecological sustainability need hardly be stated as it is often the only way in which sustainability is publicly perceived. The need to avoid or minimise the environmental impact of tourist activities is clear. Maldonado et al. (1992) suggest that the calculation of carrying capacities is an important method of assessing environmental impact and sustainability. In an important work on carrying capacity, they calculate the capacities for seven different tourist foci in Costa Rica, and in so doing take the notion of sustainability beyond a rather fatuous interpretation by so many users of the term. Box 4.7 gives an outline of their calculations of the carrying capacity for the Guayabo National Monument, a small area of archaeological significance in Costa Rica.

measurement of carrying capacity, it is important to understand that the notion of

While the work of Maldonado et al. is undoubtedly a valuable contribution to the

carrying capacity may be used to wrap a social or economic constraint in a cloak of scientific jargon. Where exclusivity is promoted by the operators, a low carrying capacity is likely to be publicised. And conservation organisations involved in the promotion of new forms of tourism are more likely than most to foster imaginary maximum capaci- ties in pursuit of conservation and economic gain. Several examples of the variability of carrying capacity calculations are given in Chapter 8.

Moreover, despite the progressive nature and importance of this work, Box 4.7 illus- trates that the calculations are dependent on assumptions which are in some cases arbi- trarily chosen (such as the maximum number in a group and the ideal management capacity) and in others widely variable (such as the degree of slope). Other assumptions and conditions affecting the physical and management capacity of the area (such as the availability of guides, maps, rest spots and the incidence of low cloud cover) might be thought of as relevant, but are not included. Furthermore, a change in one value allo- cated to one assumption or input could have a substantial effect on the final carrying capacity calculated.

Tourism and sustainability • 99

Social sustainability

Social sustainability refers to the ability of a community, whether local or national, to absorb inputs, such as extra people, for short or long periods of time, and to continue functioning either without the creation of social disharmony as a result of these inputs or by adapting its functions and relationships so that the disharmony created can be alle- viated or mitigated.

Some of the negative effects of tourism in the past have included the opening of previ- ously non-existent social divisions or the exacerbation of already-existing divisions. These can appear in the form of increasing differences between the beneficiaries of tourism and those who are marginalised by it, or of the creation of spatial ghettos, either of the tourists themselves or of those excluded from tourism. Stonich et al.(1995) provide

a clear example of these social divisions on the Bay Islands of Honduras (see Box 4.8). If we accept the premise that tourism sets up an intrinsically false and fabricated social

division between the server and the served in the first place, it is of course inevitable that tourist developments (resorts, enclaves, condominia) will create such divisions. It is one of the purposes of the tools of sustainability, such as carrying capacity calcula- tions, environmental impact assessments, and sustainability indicators, to minimise the effects of these divisions to a point at which they can be excused. To this end, Clark (1990) has suggested the possibility of calculating social carrying capacity.

Cultural sustainability

Societies may be able to continue functioning in social harmony despite the effects of changes brought about by a new input such as tourists. But the relationships within that society, the mores of interaction, the styles of life, the customs and traditions are all subject to change through the introduction of visitors with different habits, styles, customs and means of exchange. Even if the society survives, its culture may be irre- versibly altered. Culture of course is as dynamic a feature of human life as society or economy; so the processes of cultural adaptation and change are not assumed by all in all cases to be a negative effect. But cultural sustainability refers to the ability of people to retain or adapt elements of their culture which distinguish them from other people.

Cultural influences from even a small influx of tourists are inevitable and may be insidious; but the control of the most harmful effects, emphasis on the responsible behav- iour of the visitor, and the prevention of distortion of local culture might be assumed to be essential elements of sustainable tourism. Pratt’s notion of transculturation (Pratt, 1992) encapsulates the way in which marginalised or subordinated groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by dominant ‘metropolitan’ cultures. Cultural adaptation occurs in this way, and may result in change towards the wishes of the domi- nant culture.

Cultural impacts are more easily seen over the long term and are therefore more diffi- cult to measure, although the cultural subversion of many local communities has been well documented, especially but not exclusively by anthropologists – the work of de Kadt (1979), Plog (1972) and Smith (1989), for instance, illustrates the cultural ill-effects of tourism. Organisations such as Survival International and Tourism Concern have also documented the cultural subversion of indigenous groups.

Economic sustainability

The condition of economic sustainability is no less important than all others in any 11111

tourist development. Sustainability in these terms refers to a level of economic gain from

100 • Tourism and sustainability