Sustainable Tourism Law

84 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW Tourism Sustainability was generated as an independent branch inside the world movement towards sustainability. Tourism Sustainability is therefore a branch of Sustainable Development. But, as we have seen, the process has been slow. Tourism was not mentioned in the Stockholm Conference of 1972. Again, in the Report “Our Common Future” of the “Brundtland Commission”, published in 1987, tourism was not considered. Tourism had to develop its own approach to sustainability and to coordinate it with the action toward Sustainable Development, as is demonstrated in the Manila Declaration of 1980. Tourism was timidly mentioned in the 2030 Agenda, in relation to some aspects of the sustainable policy, like nature protection, job creation and promotion of local culture and products. The relation between Sustainable Development and Sustainable Tourism are, therefore variegate. As we have seen, Sustainability Development is, because of its nature, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. These characteristics involve Economic, Ecology, Ethics and Management. Sustainable Tourism Development has the same characteristic of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary fields 108 . Sustainable Tourism: a definition UNWTO defines Sustainable Tourism as follows: “ Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities ” 109 . From Ecology and environment protection to sustainable tourism: the Manila Declaration on World Tourism (1980) Some scholars date the origin of the path to Sustainable Tourism at the end of the ’70s 110 . 108 See Zhenhua LIU, Sustainable Tourism Development: A Critique , in Journal of Sustainable Tourism , Vol. 11, 2003. Liu write that in order to transform research on sustainable tourism to a more scientific level, a systems perspective and an interdisciplinary approach are indispensable. 109 In the frame of this definition, UNWTO consider the following goals: “1) Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity. 2) Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance. 3) Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio- -economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation”. 110 Same refers to Jost KRIPPENDORF, Die Landschaftsfresse , 1975. In English The Holiday Makers: Understanding the Impact of Leisure and Travel , Heinemann, London,1987 (Translation of Die Ferienmenschen. Für ein neues Verständnis von Freizeit und Reisen ). See Bernard LANE, Thirty Years of Stainable Tourism , in AA. VV., Stainable Tourism Futures , Routledge, Routledge Advances in Tourism, 2009, page 19.