the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

share of the global tourism market. However, the fashionable concern with the
environment and with healthier lifestyles, together with demand for 'something
different' on the part of those who experienced traditional 'sun, sea and sand'
holidays in their youth, influenced the growth of new types of 'alternative' tourism
and a search for more sustainable options (Niles, 1991; Davies, 1996; Schaller,
1996; Robson, 2002; Hall, 2005).
2.7 Alternatives to Mass Tourism
Although there are variations, alternative tourism is an umbrella term embracing a
supposedly more caring, aware form of tourism, and prefixes include responsible,
appropriate, sustainable, soft, green, etc. Wheeller (1991) summarised the aims of
alternative/responsible/sustainable/green tourism. He observed that supporters of
this type of tourism see a need for an alternative to mass tourism that
simultaneously minimises costs, maximises benefits and ensures an equitable and
just distribution of those costs and benefits. It is not only alternative, but should also
be responsible, more caring and aware, and the benefits should accrue to the hosts,
while at the same time there should be protection from its excesses.
Within the concept of alternative/responsible tourism, the traveller is preferred to the
tourist; the individual to the group; independent specialist operators are more
acceptable than large firms; indigenous, 'homely' accommodation is preferred to
multinational hotel chains - in essence, 'small versus mass'. The pace of
development is also crucial. It must be controlled, relatively slow and capable of
being absorbed into the host environment without any adverse repercussions. The
prevailing power base must also be altered and decision-making on tourism
development should be placed in the hands of the host communities. Raising the
awareness of the traveller prior to departure is also considered a vital component, as
education is seen by some as the key to the sustainable development of the tourism
industry (Wheeller, 1997).
Equally, there is a strong viewpoint that alternative/responsible tourism actually
deflects attention away from the real problem (Davies, 1996). According to O'Grady
(1990), the contradiction of alternative tourism is that it stands aside from the key
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