Discourse(s) of growth and sustainability in national tourism policy documents

Abstract

Using a corpus of seven European national tourism policy documents, this research examined the language used to resolve the apparently conflicting goals of economic growth and social and environmental sustainability. The detailed discourse analysis, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, found wide scale appropriation of the term ‘sustainable’, but no definitions or operationalisation. In fact, there was no acknowledgement that growth and sustainability were conflicting priorities, but ‘sustainable’ was used to give a hint of ecological sustainability, while actually meaning ‘sustained’ in phrases such as ‘sustainable growth’ and ‘sustainable development’. Thus ‘sustainable’ is appropriated to suggest continued growth, rather than reflecting the finite limits of ecological and societal sustainability. Economic goals were portrayed as instrumental to communities’ wellbeing, without evaluation, while environmental sustainability was depicted as instrumental to maintaining tourist demand. A variety of linguistic devices were used to normalise and promote economic growth including up/down metaphors and associating growth with good health and thriving and a lack of growth with poor health and looking for recovery. Countries’ competitive aspirations militate against cooperative action to reduce the environmental damage caused by international tourism. The findings illustrate how language supports neoliberal hegemony, while paying lip-service to sustainability.

Keywords:

• Sustainable development
• economic growth
• sustainable tourism
• tourism planning
• critical discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Torkington

Kate Torkington is Professora Adjunta at the School of Management, Hospitality and Tourism, University of the Algarve (Portugal) and a researcher at CiTUR—Centre for Tourism research, development and innovation. She has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Lancaster University (UK). Her current research interests include: discourses of and about tourism; language practices in tourism and migration contexts; place-identities; sustainability practices in tourism; slow tourism and responsibility in tourism.

Davina Stanford

Davina Stanford is Course Director for the Responsible Tourism Management MSc at Leeds Beckett University, Leeds UK. Her research interests include responsible tourist behaviour, destination management and responsible tourism transport in protected areas. Davina has worked as a tourism consultant for a range of clients, including destination management organisations, local authorities, regional, national and international agencies (e.g. VisitEngland, Natural England, UNEP and UNWTO).

Jo Guiver

Jo Guiver, a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire and research fellow with the Institute of Transport and Tourism has researched and taught tourism for the last 14 years. With a life-long interest in sustainability, she investigated attitudes towards different transport modes, using discourse analysis for her doctoral thesis and since has researched and written about the potential to reduce emissions in rural tourist areas by encouraging modal shift from private to public transport. As Vice President (Research) of the International Tourism Masters Network, she has helped collaborate joint research into slow tourism and sustainability.