Developing Sustainable Tourism in a Changing Environment: Issues for the Tourism Enterprises (Travel Agencies and Hospitality Enterprises)

AbstractThe awareness of the problem of mass tourism led researchers on tourism and the environment to attack past methods and policies of tourism development and to recommend their replacement with alternative forms of tourism. Due to conflicts between mass tourism and the environment, managers researchers, academicians, planners, tour operators and international bodies, such as the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO), are all working towards the development of new forms of tourism that will diminish impacts on the environment as well as maintain the national and local benefits of the tourism. The problem is that some favor small scale approaches and others see that there is no solution due to inherent problems of pollution related enterprises. This paper presents how sustainable tourism theory can be ‘operationalized’ putting on the tourism firm especially the micro tourism enterprises (travel agents and tour operators, hotels and other hospitality establishments etc) certain issues regarding opportunities and treats with this form of tourism