Abstract:
Despite being researched so widely for a considerable period of time, sustainable tourism remains a controversial issue in tourism literature with very little consensus about the understanding of the term, its practical implementations, as well as its implications. The practice of sustainability in tourism can take diverse paths as evidenced in tourism research, but recently debate is on collaboration and involvement among tourism stakeholders is gaining importance as a key to sustainable tourism development, although research in support in this issue requires further support. This study investigates the perceptions about various dimensions of sustainable tourism among four groups of tourism stakeholders, viz., Residents, Tourists, Entrepreneurs and Government Officials. To discover if difference exists, an ANOVA test was conducted for each dimension, followed by a Scheffes test to determine inter-group differences of perceptions and result shows that statistically significant differences exists in perception among stakeholder groups for six out of the seven dimensions. Differences were identified between tourist and residents, entrepreneurs, government officials in the case of understanding sustainability, focus of sustainable tourism, attitude towards participation in sustainable tourism, between residents and tourists, entrepreneurs, government officials in the case of sustainable tourism management, between tourists and residents, government officials in the case of support for sustainable tourism development and between tourists, residents and entrepreneurs, government officials in the case of economic focus of sustainable tourism. In the case of tourism industry and sustainability, none were significant.
