Sustainable Tourism Law

480 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW to the various branches of the law and it disrupts the classical division 13 . Again, this position also involves the difficulty of regulating tourism activity in a broad sense, since the object of tourism and its proper legal stewardship are not clear, naturally making things difficult. Another critical perspective, also taken from normative theory, posits that despite the birth of mass tourism in the 1950, Tourism Law as such has not existed in legislation until recent years. In the 1990’s, for instance, in Spain, legislation on the matter was scarce and fragmented 14 , limited to a few promotion and policing norms; the same situation occurred in almost every other country with a touristic tradition. Thus, someone might think that regulations for this activity are not necessary for the success of a touristic policy, given that even without an appropriate legal framework in those countries, this activity has grown at an amazing pace. Yet, there are also warnings that if this perspective persists, what happened in Spain, Italy, Mexico and other tourist destinations around the world will happen again. The implementation of a tourist model for the masses, without any legislation that would allow the management of tourist destinations, has led to social imbalance, the saturation of historical sites, a disassociation of territorial planning, and, particularly, the endangering of the cultural, natural 15 intangible heritage, especially at tourism- -host regions. IV. SOCIAL TOURISM LAW In our opinion, this section should focus on tourism host regions, given that, as shown in the paragraph above, we are using their particular characteristics to achieve the satisfaction of the receiving communities. That is one of the foundations used to approach the topic of Social Tourism Law. 13 See De la Cerda Badaró, 2003, who provides a definition of tourism law: “In view of those factors, there appears tourism law, a transcendental branch of the law that is malleable, complex, heterogeneous, founded on the principles of tolerance and alterity, which can be summarily defined as a set of institutions and rules of law, which works as an instrument for the planning and development of tourism, with the ultimate objective of protecting tourists and tourism professionals, as well as conciliate public order and tourism activities”. 14 However, we must recognize that in the nineties, Spain had a Tourism Regulation such as the Tourism Ordering Statute, Ministerial Orders (1967, 1968) on the regulation of restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, which has been the foundation for their current legal framework. 15 See, in relation to this Tudela, 2006, who contends that, in order to avoid these damages, conserving growth and obtaining the maximum possible benefit, not just in economic terms, tourism activities have been precisely the target of the recent, and very complex, Spanish tourism legislation (Tudela, 2006).