Linking Culture and the Environment

D. Ioannides 59
the early stages of the life cycle for example, success often obscures the longterm
view, whilst at the later stages, particularly when a destination is in
decline, opposition to long-term planning exercises may be rationalization
on the basis of cost’ (Cooper, 1997, p. 83). Cooper’s statement demonstrates
that when devising strategies to promote balanced growth, planners and
policy makers must be sensitive to the temporal context in which tourism
development is taking place (see also Cooper, 2006; Berry, 2006).
The shifting attitudes of each group of stakeholders towards sustainable
development of every stage of a tourist destination’s development can be
examined through a longitudinal framework. Since the late 1960s, academics
have proposed various evolutionary models of tourism development to
explain growth and change (Christaller, 1963; Plog, 1973; Miossec, 1976;
Stansfield, 1978; Gormsen, 1981). The one framework that has received considerable
attention in recent years is the resort-cycle model (Butler, 1980;
Butler, 2006a,b). Butler hypothesizes that any tourist destination goes through
seven consecutive stages of development (exploration, involvement, development,
consolidation, stagnation, decline and rejuvenation).
This simple evolutionary model’s attraction rests in its ability to describe
each stage of a destination’s development, tourism’s impacts, the mechanisms
that have caused these impacts and the identity of key indigenous and
foreign actors (Pearce, 1989). Moreover, the resort cycle helps illustrate the
market’s evolution in terms of changes in the segments and the numbers
of visitors (Ioannides, 1994). To be sure, the model has received its fair share of
criticism because, among others, it ignores seasonality, lacks clarity regarding
levels of spatial aggregation and evades the fact that the carrying capacity
thresholds for environmental, social, physical or perceptual variables are
hard to estimate as they all differ from each other (Haywood, 1986). Butler
(1997) himself admits that the prescriptive value of the resort cycle is limited
because it is a hypothetical development path, dependent upon marketing
and managerial actions, rather than an independent mechanical process
(Ioannides, 1994).
Papatheodorou (2006, p. 67) aptly critiques the resort-cycle model. He
maintains that on the plus side the tourism area life cycle (TALC) constitutes
the ‘first serious analytical framework that combines features of demand
such as consumer tastes, with elements of tourism supply like facilities and
infrastructure. Moreover, by considering the economic, social and environmental
dimensions of tourism within an explicitly dynamic context, the
TALC may be regarded as a solid research vehicle for sustainable tourism
development.’ However, he argues that on the downside the TALC is ineffective
for dealing with matters relating to ‘competition and competitiveness’.
Overall, Papatheodorou praises the model for being a ‘child of its era’ (p. 68)
that brought tourism research to the forefront of scientific research especially
with regards to better understanding and dealing with the sector’s impacts
over time.
Despite the ongoing debate concerning the resort cycle’s strengths and
weaknesses, the model has generated an astounding amount of interest since
its inception in 1980. What has attracted and continues to draw researchers to