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and environmental information at the beginning of
the planning process, and development occurs in
an exploratory fashion. Still another approach is
cautious in implementation, so that when outcomes
are uncertain policies and programmes can be
modified as new information becomes available.
Practical policy instruments that can be used to
achieve implementation of this principle involve
communities in the development of tourism
growth strategies that set targets for such
objectives as the maintenance of biological
diversity, and impose constraints on the forms
of development that are permitted. Safe minimum
standards, shifting the onus of responsibility and
burden of proof with respect to environmental
impact towards those who wish to initiate developments
that may adversely impact on the
environment, improving resource pricing mechanisms,
introducing policies that make users
pay for the full costs of providing access to
resources, and polluters paying in full for the costs
they impose on others, are all examples of such
instruments. The precautionary principle concept
is relatively new, and several issues remain
unresolved for tourism developers. These include
incorporation of the principle in extending benefit±cost
analyses of its developments; the
refinement of methods of resource pricing to take
adequate account of the principle; and importantly,
simply agreeing to divorce economic growth from
environmental degradation by not allowing developments
to go ahead without precautions where
adverse impacts may occur.
See also: ecologically sustainable tourism;
planning, environmental
Further reading
Boer, B., Fowler, R. and Gunningham, N. �1994)
Environmental Outlook:Law and Policy, Sydney:
Federation Press.
preservation
MALCOLM COOPER, AUSTRALIA
The non-use of resources, when applied in
natural areas, refers to limited development for
the purpose of saving species and wilderness for
the future. Sometimes used interchangeably with
conservation, particularly in North America,
preservation is used in a more restricted sense
where management of natural areas only extends
as far as preventing unnatural interference to the
natural resources, which are central tourism
attractions worldwide.
prestige
prestige 459
ROSS K. DOWLING, AUSTRALIA
Like its counterpart term, `status', prestige is linked
to both the history and contemporary practice of
tourism. Throughout the centuries some tourists,
as reflected in their writing and in broad sociological
accounts, have emphasised the social
rewards of travelling to fashionable locations. The
equation underlying this prestige relationship is
relatively simple. Since travel in earlier centuries
was expensive and time-consuming, only those
wealthy and affluent members of society could
engage in such conspicuous consumption.
Additionally, select locations were identified as
particularly prestigious because, in addition to the
expense of reaching these settings, an appropriate
introduction to an inner circle of respectable and
knowledgeable personnel was also required. In
contemporary society, expensive and fashionable
places still confer prestige on the tourist, partly
through the pricing of special resorts and partly
through the knowledge of what is fashionable.
There are a number of signs, however, that the
neat relationship between tourism sites and
prestige is changing. Now that its products are
becoming increasingly differentiated at the same
location, it is no longer particularly impressive to
report on tourism to any named site. Instead, how
one travels, how one stays and what experiences
are achieved are gaining in value. Postmodern
theorists such as Urry �1990) argue that for many
tourists these prestige location relationships have
largely disappeared as new consumers learn to try
on tourism identities and vary their experiences.
The enduring importance of the prestige notion
in tourism is supported by three research directions.
The prestige of and the fashionability of