Opinion piece
A clear path towards sustainable mass tourism? Rejoinder to the paper
‘Organic, incremental and induced paths to sustainable mass tourism
convergence’ by David B. Weaver
Paul Peeters
*
Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport, NHTV Breda University for Applied Sciences, PO Box 3917, 4800 DX Breda, The Netherlands
article info
Article history:
Received 1 December 2011
Accepted 8 January 2012
Keywords:
Sustainable development
Mass tourism
Systems thinking
abstract
The paper forms a rejoinder to the paper by David Weaver (‘Organic, incremental and induced paths to
sustainable mass tourism convergence’). It fully agrees with David Weaver that a sustainable develop-
ment of tourism should focus on sustainable mass tourism development and not, as is currently the case,
so much on niche products labelled ‘sustainable’. However, it critiques Weaver’s operationalization of
sustainability, his assumption that sustainable mass tourism (SMT) will be the ‘emergent norm’ due to
external factors, and his destination development theory showing different paths that, however, all end
in SMT. Finally it is shown that the path development idea might be at odds with systems thinking.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The subject of Weaver’s opinion piece, sustainable development
of tourism, is a very relevant one as the tourism sector is not
developing in an environmentally sustainable manner (e.g. for
climate change Peeters & Dubois, 2010; Scott, Peeters, & Gössling,
2010 and global environmental change Gössling, 2002; Gössling
& Hall, 2006). As most tourism is mass tourism, it is very
welcome to have a discussion about the sustainability of mass
tourism. Too many sustainable tourism papers describe only niches
(e.g. pro-poor, ecotourism, community based tourism, volunteer
tourism), without clarifying how this fits the changes required for
the whole tourism system. Furthermore, Weaver uses ‘regulation’
as a proxy for ‘sustainability’ indicating he is highly aware of the
important role of regulation to gain sustainable development. The
most challenging statement by Weaver is that ‘sustainable mass
tourism’ is the ‘desired and impending’ outcome for the develop-
ment of tourism. This conclusion is based on a claim that five
external factors e conventional/renewable resource price conver-
gence, climate change awareness, the global financial crisis, insti-
tutionalised environmentalism and the Internet e will guide the
sector into an ‘emergent norm of sustainability’, combined with the
‘entrenched norm of support for growth’.
Part of Weaver’s reasoning is based on his destination devel-
opment theory, operationalized by plotting development paths on
two axes, one of scale (tourism volume) and one of level of
regulation. Within this plot, Weaver discerns three distinct devel-
opment paths that, however, all end in fully regulated high volume
tourism or sustainable mass tourism (SMT). The ‘incremental path’
is characterised by a high level of regulation preceding volume
development and is most associated with destinations in vulner-
able areas like nature parks. The ‘organic path’, is the opposite
development, where volume develops first followed by regulation
after the ‘mass state’ and when a state of ‘unsustainable mass
tourism’ has been reached. In this case regulation may be triggered
by severe negative impacts at the location. This ‘organic path’ most
resembles the tourism area life cycle (TALC) idea espoused by
Butler (1980, 2006a,b) and is most common for current mass
tourism destinations. The third path, the ‘induced
path’, is in the
middle of the two other paths where both scale and regulation
develop simultaneously. Though the idea of ‘sustainable mass
tourism deserves further development, I do not agree with the far
reaching conclusions founded in weak empiricism, a flawed
systems approach and an inadequate definition of sustainable
development.
To start with, to define sustainability Weaver assumes that all
tourism always will “entail cost” and that sustainable development
simply means to minimise environmental cost “whilst concurrently
maximising the attendant benefits, both locally and globally” (first
page). This cost-focused definition is not very helpful to understand
sustainable development. Sustainable development is the result of
the dynamics of a system within certain conditions or limits. The
outcome of this dynamic system is based not only on costs but also
benefits, thresholds, carrying capacities and absorption abilities
DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.tourman.2011.08.011.
*
Tel.: þ31 765332203; fax: þ31 765332205.
E-mail address: peeters.p@nhtv.nl.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman
0261-5177/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2012.01.013
Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1038e1041