Linking Culture and the Environment

D. Ioannides 57
including hotel chains, airlines and cruise lines, remain firmly focused on the
survival of the sector. Indeed, for these businesses or organizations, terms
such as ‘sustainable development’ or ‘green tourism’ may be little more than
marketing gimmicks to ensure business survival (Butler, 1999, p. 13).
A group that has long embraced that banner of ‘sustainable tourism’ is
the British-based International Federation of Tour Operators (IFTO), members
of which include a number of major mass-oriented tour companies. The
IFTO calls for the adoption of ‘realistic carrying capacity per destination
[and] a sound set of laws to ensure sustainable development’ (Brackenbury,
1997, p. 1). As noble as this cause sounds, this lobby group’s overriding concern
is the continued generation of profits for its members. The tour operators
that the IFTO represents are mostly interested in sustaining the appeal of
their products among increasingly discerning and sophisticated international
travellers, and are not truly worried about the needs for future generations in
destination areas (Carey et al., 1997). Thus, these players may talk about sustainable
development but their true focus remains on the short-term growthoriented
goals of their business (Ioannides, 1998; Mowforth and Munt, 2003).
Environmental and socio-cultural concerns are significant to IFTO members
only if they have an adverse impact on profits.
Private companies and groups such as the IFTO, which regard the preservation
of ecosystems in economic terms, retain a ‘treadmill’ view of sustainability
(Kousis, 2001; Ioannides and Holcomb, 2003). Similarly, the
approach of national and supranational organizations towards sustainable
development tends to be ‘weak’, since, more often than not these bodies
emphasize economic rather than social or environmental sustainability. In
most cases, these organizations are unwilling to implement drastic institutional
changes and are anxious to pacify tourism-related producers by
responding to their needs. The widespread policy of attracting ‘quality’
tourists in the Mediterranean, described in the previous section, highlights
a ‘weak’ approach to sustainable development. The only groups that are
likely to adopt a ‘strong’ or ‘ideal’ perspective of sustainable development,
signifying the need for major ‘changes in patterns of production and consumption
[or even] drastic restructuring of political, legal, social, and economic
institutions’, are grassroots organizations such as pro-environment,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs; Kousis, 2001).
In the following section, attention focuses on the manner in which the
numerous stakeholders who influence a destination’s development have
contradictory priorities concerning the role of tourism and, more importantly,
varying perspectives of the meaning of sustainable development. To
complicate matters further, it is shown that the perspectives of the respective
groups of stakeholders are unlikely to remain static over time.
Sustainable Development: a Longitudinal Model
For sustainability to be achieved in any environment, it is imperative for policy
makers to give an opportunity to all stakeholders to become actively