The concept of STD has been used as a principle and an effective tool to manage many tourism destinations around the word. The most important purpose of this tool provides the methods to increase the positive impacts and decrease the negative ones of tourism development. Despite receiving much attention from academics, managers and planers, the concept of STD is still rather debating because there are many different approaches and ways in which sustainability can be put into practice. Hall (1998) has pointed out that the main purposes of sustainability are protecting livelihoods, culture, society, and environment. Therefore, to achieve these purposes, sustainable development calls for the involvement of many factors including stakeholders and a strategic planning in the process of development (Simpson, 2001). From these ideas, it is clear that sustainable development is a complex and broad concept including many aspects of human life.The term "sustainable development" is first used in 1980 World Conservation Strategy of International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resource. However, Rohe (1997) and Butler (1998) claimed that the approach setting in that time was not suitable for current conditions because the ideas went back to the period of industrialization. The 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development introduced a definition which considers sustainable development "... development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". This definition receives the agreement of many social parties and stared to apply print to practice (MacLellan 1997) and sustainable development has become the global agenda in many forms of development as its most broad understanding (Sofield 2003).Along with the concept of sustainable development, STD concept also receives a period of debating and evaluating. MacLellan (1997) has quoted that although people agree to the contribution of STD in the macro levels, there is not any universal agreement of the term STD. This reality stems from the fact that sustainability is a complex, ambiguous, and sometimes vague concept (Butler, 1993; Muller 1994; Swarbrooke 1998). The most important reason contributes to that variety is that when people look at certain perception and different local contexts; they will choose different principles of STD to form their ideas. Hence, many authors have offered their own definition of STD (Bramwell & Lane 1993; Buckley, 1996; Hardy & Beeton 2001). In spite of the fact that STD does not have the same direction on the face of it, almost approaches have the same purpose which finds the way to put into practice the STD (Swarbrooke 1998). Fyall & Garrod (1998) claimed that the STD will not target their goals unless people can see something in reality. In general, the STD is a broad concept and the more variety of literatures, the more choice for a STD model. The most agreed definition of STD is from the World Tourism Organization (WTO). In the report named "Guide for Local Authorities on Developing Sustainable Tourism", the WTO has defined that STD is something with the purpose that "... meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems "(World Tourism Organization). This definition is used as a guideline and a basic background for almost tourism projects with respect to sustainable development criteria.Figure 2 analyzes the development process of STD. From this figure, it can be concluded that the STD concept originates from the mass tourism area and many alternative stages have been followed up before the full establishment of STD. The development takes a long time to fulfill.Figure 2: The development of STD conceptSource: Swarbrooke (1998)Although there are many differences in understanding the meaning of STD, there is a similarity in setting up its principles. The ultimate purpose of STD is to protect future generation (Welford & Ytterhus, 2004). Therefore, STD is often understood on three aspects, namely the "Triple bottom line" referring to social, environmental and economic outputs and goals (World Tourism Organization, 1993). The "Triple bottom line" infers that tourism in a destination is sustainable when it improves the quality of local community, satisfies the customers, and protects the environment.To concretize the "Triple bottom line", The United Nation (UN) has proposed 18 core principles for sustainability (United Nations, 2003). These principles cover a huge range of sustainability and many of these mentioned the important role of strategic planning and stakeholder participation for the success of a STD project. It means that strategic pl
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