Socio-cultural sustainability and small tourism businesses

Abstract

Early assumptions pertaining to the sustainability of small tourism businesses (STBs) have been answered specifically as it relates to environmental sustainability. What is less well documented and still unclear is the extent to which STBs enhance the socio-cultural sustainability of the destination. This lacuna is surprising, given the development of indicators of sustainable tourism. This study therefore fills this gap by utilizing sustainability indicators to examine the extent to which small tourism businesses, across a number of sectors, contribute to destination sustainability. Using a conceptual approach premised upon principles of socio-cultural sustainability to construct the reference condition for indicator development, the study found that businesses performed better on indicators related to equity and cultural conservation but had mixed performance in the area of social cohesion, and were borderline on empowerment. The theoretical contribution of the study is that it provides operational validity to the assumptions governing small tourism businesses and socio-cultural sustainability by employing indicators developed through the scientific consensus approach. Using this approach, the study is able to measure socio-cultural sustainability contributions across myriad sectors.