Eco-tourism has become a modern trend not only because of pressure towards greater environmental initiatives, but that having such a practice will ensure the future sustainability of the industry itself. Mastny argues that current eco-tourism measures has restructured management and operations along environmental lines (Mastny, npg). Principally that new measures are being instituted to reduce the damage to local environments and cultures by changing the way they use water, energy and resources to reduce consumption and efficiently dispose of waste. Technologies are being developed in the past ten years to provide renewable energy use, and ecologically sound chemical management practices. The general trend of the industry is to modify its behavior to focus more on preserving the environment, culture and general atmosphere of tourism hotbeds. As evidence of the growth within these concerns, Mastny points to the fact that Europes's "Blue Flag Campaign awards a yearly 'eco-label' to some 2750 beaches and marinas in 21 countries for their high environmental standards and safe, sanitary facilities" (Mastny, npg). Sustainable tourism is definitely a procedure that changes the face of tourism around the world, and will have dramatically positive affects on how we view tourism and its relationship with the environment and local cultures in the long-term. My personal definition of sustainable tourism development centers around the principle of sustainability...

It is simply tourism that stresses the implementation of strategies that reduces the human impact on local cultures and environments. This definition is arrived through the combination of the root causes of sustainability and tourism. Sustainability implies procedures that will ensure preservation of both the environmental and local cultures. While tourism is the practice of allowing consumers to view and live the experience of new cultures and environments. The only way to combine these two inherently colliding interests is to develop and implement strategies that will minimally disrupt tourism destinations, while still providing the experience of a lifetime for those who are taking the journey to a new and exotic location.
Sustainable Tourism. (2006, August). Retrieved January 25, 2007, from GDRC Web site: http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/eco-tour.html

Pleumarom, a. (2006, April 15). ECO-TOURISM or ECO-TERRORISM? Retrieved January 25, 2007 at http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/negative.html

Mastny, L. (2001, April). From Rio to Johannesburg: New Paths for International

Tourism. Retrieved January 25, 2007, at http://www.gdrc.org/uem / eco-tour/jburg-etour.html

Geis, D. (n.d.). Developing Sustainable Communities: The Future is Now.

Retrieved January 25, 2007, at http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org / articles/develop.shtml