Environmentally Sustainable Tourism: international and Hungarian relations

Dávid, Lóránt – Baros, Zoltán

Keywords: tourism, sustainable development, environment

Compliance with the principles of sustainability is now a general requirement with respect to any tourism strategy, tourism policy or management. Much has been written about the issue of sustainability and its relationship to tourism management and development. Still, their actual relationship is not always clear, and whilst a number of methodologies profess to be sustainable, there is no clear statement as to how that can be achieved.
It is generally accepted, irrespective of the sustainability model used, that there are three key components or strands to sustainability: economic, social and environmental. It is in working towards a balance between the competing demands of all three components that progress towards sustainability can be achieved. One should never forget that in the field of tourism, visitors also have a significant impact on all three strands.
For destination management to be sustainable, it needs to address all the economic, social and environmental issues of a particular area. A number of methodologies have been put forward in an attempt to ensure that tourism-related activities are carried out in a sustainable manner.
Destination management that follows an accepted process and/or deals effectively with a majority of the key components can be considered sustainable.
An action plan or process that does not clearly address the core components of economic, social and environmental well-being or does not pursue a majority of the process components identified in the process framework document presented on the website is unlikely to have sustainability as a core principle.

Full article