involves a special relationship between consumers (visitors), the industry, the environment and local communities. The special relationship arises because, unlike most other sectors, the consumer of tourism (the tourist) travels to the producer and the product. This leads to three important and unique aspects of the relationship between tourism and sustainable development: • Interaction: The nature of tourism, as a service industry that is based on delivering an experience of new places, means that it involves a considerable amount of interaction, both direct and indirect, between visitors, host communities and their local environments. • Awareness: Tourism makes people (visitors and hosts) become far more conscious of environmental issues and differences between nations and cultures. This can affect attitudes and concerns for sustainability issues not only while travelling but throughout peopleʼs lives. • Dependency: Much of tourism is based on visitors seeking to experience intact and clean environments, attractive natural areas, authentic historic and cultural traditions, and welcoming hosts with whom they have a good relationship. The industry depends on these attributes being in place. Sustainable development not only ensures that consumption of tourism does not exceed the agility of the host destination to prosper, but also provides for the freedom, education and welfare of the host community. It has become common knowledge that it is unethical to save nature at the expense of the local people. The host community should be given the opportunity to act as partner in the sustainable development of its land, not as enemy of it. Recreational facilities are frequently developed to meet visitor demand, but also open up access for local residents. The use of these recreational facilities by visitors is frequently seasonal or on weekends, but the local residents get to use them year-round or mid-week.
5.1.1 Culture and Eco Tourism as Driving Forces
Culture and eco-tourism are considered as niche tourism with a enormous potential for growth. There is an increasing request and a growing market for targeted tourism with strong interactions in the triangle nature, culture and people. Cultural tourism is currently 35-40% of all international trips and is growing by 15% each year. Eco-tourism is also increasing from 20% by 10-12% of arrivals each year (Mogao 2009). Eco-tourism and cultural tourism are coherent regarding the standards of tourism but different in their targets. Therefore sustainable tourism is going a step beyond, interlinking the focus nature and culture in a holistic approach for development. The influence of tourists on the societies they visit is generally more pronounced than vice versa. The majority of global tourists come from a few affluent countries (dominant cultures), which are relatively unaffected by visitors from smaller local cultures. On the other hand, tourism increases the risk of irreversible cultural and eco- systemic disruptions in smaller societies.
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