The paradigms of sustainable development in the tourism context

Exploring the ideological and conceptual roots of sustainable development paradigms, the historic account provides an explanatory basis for discrepancies between contrasting and sometimes contradictory interpretations of sustainable development in the tourism context. The development and current status of discourses and perceptions are analysed, and an alternative system model of 'pure' Sustainable Development (SD) paradigms is subsequently proposed, to harness the complexity of existing perspectives and approaches. It is anticipated that the suggested theoretical and conceptual framework can shed light on reasons underlying different ways of thinking and practising sustainable tourism development principles. The paradigms employed correspond to elementary control principles rather than adhering to particular dimensions and interpretations of SD. Each of the paradigms incorporates, however, a specific conviction regarding the process of how SD is achieved, as well as generalised goals. The model is envisaged as an attempt to theorise and conceptualise sustainable tourism development in a bottom-up approach in order to overcome the difficulties associated with defining sustainable development. At a practical level, the quasi-axiomatic foundation of the model allows the identification of SD goals by classifying target objects such as principles, objectives and activities of individual stakeholders and parties. Concrete operations thus become accessible to assessment and evaluation, and can be linked to a precise definition of sustainable tourism development