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

problem. He states that it is time to return to the main issue of 'what can be done
about tourism as a whole?'
According to Wheeller (1997), the fundamental problem of tourism, as a global
phenomenon, is the sheer volume involved. The problem of mass tourism is also
increasing globally, '...citing examples at the micro level gives the erroneous
impression that tourism as a mass phenomenon can similarly be successfully
harnessed. In vogue 'solutions' are further fuelling the rapid spread of tourism
without offering any real, lasting answer. The real problem is the massive volume
of numbers of tourists. This is not being addressed' (p. 92).
Similar opinions were expressed at the first official meeting of the International
Academy for the Study of Tourism held in Zakopane in 1989. It was suggested by
some that alternative tourism was only a single element of a global industry, while
others felt that the task was not to promote alternative tourism, but to make
conventional tourism more sustainable (Davies, 1996).
Responsible tourism has developed as a reaction to mass tourism, is being caught
up in the groundswell of green issues and is being championed as an appropriate
way forward. However, according to Wheeller (1997), ".. .it cannot, by its very
nature, be the way forward everywhere and it is, in fact, dangerously misleading" (p.
62). This is evident in the fact that, on the one hand the problem of mass tourism is
that it is growing globally out of control, at an alarming rate, while on the other hand,
the solution to this is viewed as being small-scale, slow, steady controlled
development. As Wheeller (1997) states, "(T)hey just do not add up" (p. 62). He
further suggests that even though there are numerous examples of both domestic
and international small-scale 'alternative successes', they should not be cited
deliberately or inadvertently, as evidence that tourism as a whole can in a physical
sense be sensitively controlled (Wheeller, 1997).
Even though the concept of small-scale development is laudable, it does not tackle
the large-scale problem of volume. For example, if all tourist destinations carefully
calculated their appropriate tourism thresholds, and then imposed restrictions to
keep tourist numbers below these limits, and if all the tourists were indeed 'sensitive
travellers', even then the tourist problem as a whole would not be solved as the
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