Chapter 16 examined the environmental impacts of the leisure and tourism sector. It considered ways in which the market failed to signal long-term problems of resource depletion, waste production and disposal, and other unpriced externalities. It highlighted the distinction between what was most profitable for firms and what was most profitable for society as a whole. It chronicled a wealth of evidence of undesirable results if the market was left to dictate future developments without any regard for wider environmental considerations.

This chapter examines strategies for utilizing environmental economic analysis to enable development of the leisure and tourism sector to take place with due regard to possible side effects. The aim of such analysis is to prevent the side effects of development causing socially unacceptable damage to the environment or indeed to stifle the very developments themselves. By studying this chapter students will be able to:

• explain the meaning of sustainable development;

• understand the limitations of the price mechanism in allocating resources in respect of environmental considerations;

• utilize different instruments for encouraging sustainability and environmental consideration;

• evaluate a variety of methods to impute value to unpriced externalities;

• understand the range of influences on environmental policy.