Sustainable Urban Planning

though this may be in a manner which proves physically uncomfortable and

sometimes disquieting to visitors.

Where ‘hard’ formulaic tourism is often adversely synergistic, eco-tourism

strives to be beneficially symbiotic. The challenge to tourism generally, and

nature-based sustainable tourism directly, is a matter of respond-

ing to the following trinity (a summation by Voase 1995): ‘First to

recognisethat tourism benefits (to the tourists) are largely psy-

chological – in the mind of the beholder: Secondthat the attrac-

tiveness of the tourism experience is determined by the culture

and mores of the society which generates and provides it: Third

that the competitive advantage in servicing the tourist consumer

...will be gained by an instinctive passion for service.’ Clearly

‘tourism as place’ (the earlier pattern of Old World holidaying)

has evolved toward ‘tourism as people’, indeed as people-and-

place, very much withlocal inhabitants within their living envi-

ronment and on a sustainable-conservancy basis.

The context of commercial formula ‘hard’ tourism (fixed itiner-

aries, rapid transport, replicated accommodations) is exemplified

by the ‘packaged tour’ experience. Tourism of this kind is bound

to be often disappointing and unrewarding and to degrade the

sites of concentration visited, eventually declining toward eco-

nomic stagnation for the supply-side providers.

Comparably, in the context of ‘soft’ eco-tourism, there is a

green-politics preservation and a woolly-cardigan emphasis of

the ‘leave only footprints, take only photographs’ kind, which

needs to be understood in terms of customer and community

176 Practice

Hard (enclave) tourism Soft (benign) tourism

Aggressive (hard sell) Cautious (soft sell)

Unchecked Controlled

Overcomes environment Fits into environment

About ‘branding’ About ‘ethos’

Large volumes Small groups

Location-specific Area-dispersed

International styling Vernacular-styled

Corporate ownership Local ownership

Menial local jobs Skills-enhancing

Agency-driven Community motivated

Sector-based Entirety-predicated

Price-conscious Value-conscious

Quantitative Qualitative

Figure 4.7 Hard tourism and soft tourism

Nature-based tourists

are prepared to put up

with some hardship,

even danger; also to pay

more, and be basically

victualled and

considerably

inconvenienced for that

privilege!

‘Adverse’ in the context,

for example, of

commercial formula

Casino development

which induces negative

add-on recreational

services (drug supply

and prostitution) a

pattern which then

seeps into the host

environment. ‘Symbiotic’

in the context, for

example, of the limited-

cost-small-return, yet

widespread, homestay

cultural vacationing.