Harald Heinrichs · Pim Martens Gerd Michelsen · Arnim Wiek Editors

2 Solution Options Through Sustainable Tourism 
and Tourism Sustainability
Sustainable tourism
seeks local incremental changes towards balancing the goals of 
economic growth, social equality and ecological integrity in the development and 
operations of tourism destinations (Hall 
2011
). Tourism is primarily conceived as an 
economic activity, the sustainability of which is contingent upon the reduction of 
associated social and environmental costs. The goal is to balance the well-being of 
host communities, the satisfaction of guests, and the profits of the industry while 
ensuring that the recreational services upon which the industry depends are main-
tained (Liu 
2003
). Such balancing has primarily been sought through the definition 
and implementation of models of good practices
. Table 
23.1
 includes some “green 
ideas” already adopted by hotels according to the Green Hotels Association. In a
more comprehensive effort, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council approved 
“Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria” in 2009, which were allegedly based on 4,500 
industry best practices from around the world. At one level, “sustainable tourism” is 
a success story when judged by the concept’s diffusion among industry, government, 
academics, and policy actors. Yet, it is simultaneously a policy failure given perva-
sive accumulation and growth of environmental degradation and social inequality 
(Hall 
2011
). In any case, balancing the multiple objectives of sustainability will
require developing indicators that identify limits and opportunities and that help to 
design effective strategies toward minimizing the impacts of tourism on all scales.
There have been significant efforts toward drawing sustainable management 
guidelines, codes of practice, and corporate action programs that are potentially 
implementable by the private sector and eventually enforceable by public officials. 
This voluntary perspective has built on the concept of corporate social responsibil-
ity and the one-time adoption of some frameworks to evaluate the impacts of tour-
ism on destinations, including Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC), Visitor Impact
Management (VIM), or Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (McCool and
Lime 
2001
). However, as stated above, no systematic collection of data on impacts