Critiques of island sustainability in tourism

Abstract

Island sustainability influences and is influenced by tourism resources, such as sun, sea, and sand for warm water destinations and ice and large mammals for cold water destinations. To understand better these influences, some critiques of island sustainability are examined with regard to their relevance for tourism, using principally theoretical discussion supported by empirical examples as exemplified through the small island developing states (SIDS) acronym, pristine nature, and climate change. Energy (including transportation) and waste management, being essential service sectors for tourism, are examined in terms of island sustainability. Tourism-relevant consequences and understandings of island sustainability, especially from island studies literature, cover conspicuous sustainability, the storyline of climate change destroying islands including ‘last-chance tourism’, and island assemblages. Branding and marketing feature, often trapping tourism into using island sustainability to achieve tourism goals irrespective of any sustainability goals succeeding. Although tourism using island sustainability is not inherently detrimental to tourism or to sustainability, it can distract and detract from working with islanders to seek sustainability including, but not limited to, tourism endeavours.

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