Local Agenda 21 and Community Participation in Tourism Policy and Planning: Future or Fallacy

Abstract

Turning from enunciation of sustainability to implementation, this paper focuses on the Local Agenda 21 (LA 21) policy envelope, emanating from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Agenda 21 challenges local authorities to adopt policy goals encompassing not only sustainable development but also to incorporate participative, collaborative processes, which involve local communities in defining their own sustainable futures. This can and should include tourism development as a significant environmental, economic and social agent. The impacts LA21 is having on tourism are assessed, using the UK as a case example, but with wider relevance. The paper evidences that while sustainable development in tourism practice is emerging, this remains largely outside the LA21 process, the significance of which and the relevance to tourism has been slow to be recognised. More attention to LA21's relevance to tourism is advocated and quintessentially sustainable forms of tourism development, such as cycle tourism initiatives, are used to example the largely unrealised potential for the convergence of the LA21 and sustainable tourism policy fields.