Introduction

Destinations face increasing challenges in an international marketplace where multiple stakeholders with diverse values and often divergent needs compete for scarce or unique resources. Rapid population growth combined with the global mobility of labour, capital, technology and people means that places now have to compete on an international and highly multicultural stage for capital and goods. The growing populations of travellers and inhabitants increasingly impact on natural and social environments, and success in the twenty-first century marketplace depends on the ability of firms and destinations to engage in sustainable use and conservation of vital resources. On this mobile world stage, social equity and cultural diversity emerge as crucial development-related items. Environmental and social justice issues (related, for example, to gender, sexuality, ethnicity) have to be addressed from both the supply and demand side of the tourism system.

Sustaining the natural and cultural resources on which tourism depends has therefore been taken up as a key initiative in tourism, e.g. Local Agenda 21 for Travel & Tourism. Heritage institutions like English Heritage reveal a major shift in heritage and cultural resource management, from physical preservation and visitor management to developing sense of place and identity through the inclusion of diverse cultural voices (English Heritage, 2002). But planning and managing tourism in such a complex domain requires new tools and methods. Close interaction between the public sector (e.g. city planners, transportation department), the destination's tourism marketing organization, the private sector and the local residents in...