Linking Culture and the Environment

62 Sustainable Tourism Development on a ‘Mediterranean Isle’
and comprehend the role that tourism plays in their community’s growth,
especially when it is well planned. Additionally, many of these people,
including the retirees, are likely to have owned a business earlier in their life
meaning they sympathize with the business owners.
While the aforementioned study provides valuable lessons regarding the
viewpoints of various stakeholders towards tourism, it should be argued
that Hilton Head is not a typical tourist destination given that it was preplanned
by one major developer and experienced controlled growth through
time. This community has not had the experiences of many other places,
including numerous coastal destinations throughout the Mediterranean and
the Caribbean that have witnessed poorly planned and unregulated growth.
In other words, Hilton Head’s TALC does not match that of many other
coastal developments throughout the world. Given the importance that tourism
holds for these environments, it is evident that gaining a superior understanding
of how the perceptions of different players vary through time is
imperative in order to develop more effective policies.
The following section illustrates the observed agendas of different stakeholders
at various stages of a destination’s evolution. The analysis is influenced
by the experiences of various Mediterranean islands since I (the author)
have had considerable experience studying these environments over the
course of almost two decades (Oglethorpe, 1984; Ioannides, 1992; Loukissas
and Triantafyllopoulos, 1997; Ioannides and Holcomb, 2003). For the sake of
simplicity, therefore, the ensuing framework is labelled ‘The Mediterranean
isle context’. Nevertheless, it is assumed that this longitudinal conceptual
construct, especially the notion that stakeholder attitudes towards tourism
and sustainable development are likely to shift according to a destination’s
development stage, can be tailored for other areas and other types of resorts
throughout the world.
‘The Mediterranean Isle Context’
It is impossible to investigate every group of stakeholders involved in a destination’s
development. Nevertheless, the present analysis accounts for a
range of possible players representing local, regional, national and international
concerns. Tables 4.1–4.3 are a series of matrices reflecting the conflicting
economic, socio-cultural and environmental agendas, plus the contrasting
time perspectives of various actors, according to resort-cycle stage. The columns
indicate the following stakeholders: national and/or regional governments,
local authorities, developers/hoteliers, NGOs, mass-tour operators
and local inhabitants; for the sake of simplicity, local inhabitants are dealt
with as one homogeneous group although it is realized that in any destination
the residents are likely to have divided opinions depending on factors
such as their age, their length of stay in the community and whether or not
they have an economic interest in tourism. Based on this last comment it is
obvious that the model can be adapted according to the context of the study
to take into account a larger or a smaller number of players.