Enhancing communities for sustainability: a travel ecology approach.

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to outline a community tourism planning approach uniting the themes of social and ecological sustainability. We argue that sustainable tourism and “sustainable community tourism development have thus far failed to account for the social and political inequalities inherent within the concept of sustainable development. We contend that tourism planning should help create equitable, sustainable communities resilient enough to survive in a highly volatile international environment. A dual approach is advanced in this article: a political ecology critique of the emerging global economy combined with a communitarian perspective aimed at enhancing communities. Based on theoretical and practical considerations, we term this approach travel ecology and provide six broad principles to guide tourism planners working for local, regional, national, and international communities: discovery, mutuality, locality, historicity, potentiality, and enhancement.