Perisseuo: The Enduring Myth of Sustainable Tourism

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that sustainable tourism, the widely accepted benchmark for the present and future responsible tourism industry is, and will continue to be, a myth. The paper takes the form of a review essay and relies on discussions of concepts, comparisons, and examples rather than field research and empirical data to define the problem and draw conclusions. We use the folkloric myth of Plutus, the god of wealth and abundance, to underscore two moral themes. The first is that wealth is blind, and second that seeking wealth and abundance is an entrenched aspect of human nature, with greed (avarice) consistently destabilizing societal improvements. Science shows us what the problems are (e.g., climate change), while ethics tell us how to address these problems. However, it seems that we still cannot find our way to a sustainable tourism future. What is playing out in the theatre of sustainable tourism, therefore, is far from a comedy and much more like a tragedy, as tourism in its current forms has become too much of a good thing, rendering “sustainable” a meaningless term. Overtourism, overdevelopment, disparities, and injustices are now the norm in the maelstrom of global tourism, with no palpable end in sight.

“Without rules, we cannot live.”

—Fallon (2023)

“I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.”

—Ray Bradbury (Pohl, 1994)

1. Introduction

Tourism has grown almost continuously for as long as records have been kept, except for the periods comprising the two world wars and the recent pandemic of COVID 19. So overwhelming has that growth been that an increasing number of destinations, from hamlets to nation-states, have been experiencing the phenomenon of overtourism, which could be defined as an excess of tourists and/or tourism development (see Cheer et al., 2019; Dodds & Butler, 2019). Such a situation is at first glance surprising, because for over three decades, most countries, along with thousands of agencies and destinations, as well as millions of individual enterprises, have claimed to be practising ‘sustainable tourism’ based on the principles of sustainable development outlined in Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 1987) and summarised in the sentence “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Scholars have discussed this eminently reasonably sounding—if heavily lacking in detail—statement in many contexts, including, inevitably, tourism, and one might conclude that “The distinguishing achievement of sustainable development is that it has achieved an almost mythical state of approval that has lasted for a quarter of a century, garnering support from most sides of the political spectrum” (Butler, 2013, p. 222). This has come about in part because the different meanings given to the term have allowed stakeholders with very different viewpoints to claim to be acting sustainably and because these multiple interpretations have changed over time, meaning that—as McCool argues (McCool, 2016, p. 27)—the idea that sustainable tourism occurs “at the convergence of ecological viability, social acceptability and economic feasibility no longer provides the utility it once had.”

Despite widespread approval, tourism has become too much of a good thing in an increasing number of locations (e.g., Venice, Dubrovnik, Barcelona) as shown by the emergence of overtourism, a phenomenon accepted as being representative of unsustainable tourism (Mihalic, 2020). It is seen as compromising the ability of future generations (and future chosen destinations and their residents) to meet their needs, although these needs are rarely defined. One might question how this has become possible, given the overwhelming support for the concept of sustainable development (SD), and in this particular case sustainable tourism (ST). The inconsistency between sustainable tourism and overtourism has come about because the concept of sustainable tourism is, to put it bluntly, a myth and has yet to exist on almost any scale. While individual tourist enterprises may operate in a close-to-sustainable state, the forms of tourism that are engaged in at such locations are almost always far from sustainable. However, academic, business, and political realms maintain the fiction that ST is in operation. Such a situation has come about and is true for other sectors because of the conversion of the word ‘sustainable’ to a meaningless term. A recent article in The Times (O’Connell, 2022) summed up the pointless nature of the term ‘sustainable,’ concluding that it had become applied so much and in so many situations as to render it useless and misleading. In making the argument that ST is a myth, we refer to McKercher and Prideaux’s (2014) paper on myths in tourism (sustainable tourism is one of many myths mentioned), in which the authors note, “What constitutes a demonstrably false belief … is a matter of interpretation. Some myths are simply factually incorrect,” and that “Distortion can be so great that the absolute truthfulness of a myth is often far less important than its symbolic or metaphorical value” (McKercher & Prideaux, 2014, p. 17); see also (Alexander & Archer, 2000). Such distortions tend to authenticate unreliable assumptions about their validity (Barthes, 1972). We argue that this has befallen sustainable tourism (Butler, 1999; Wheeller, 2013).

Given the realities noted above, we aim to use myth in its two primary senses to challenge the current orthodoxy concerning sustainable tourism as a silver bullet—a seemingly straightforward solution to a complex problem. The first sense relates to stories using symbolic narrative, the origin of which may be based on fact or fiction, usually involving gods or superhuman beings (Britannica, 2024). In adopting this approach, we first draw on the myth of Plutus, the Greek god of wealth, prosperity, abundance, and agriculture, to establish a foundation of wealth as a central and unshakeable aspect of human nature. We then provide an archetype of an unsustainable destination, represented in the fictitious island of Perisseuo (the Greek word for abundance, or to overflow with something), to fortify the discussion of places showing how wealth and abundance in the absence of sustainability manifest in real life.

The second sense of myth refers to “a widely held but false belief or idea” or “an exaggerated or idealised conception of a person or thing” (Google, 2024). Here, we discuss the real essence of sustainable development (and tourism) formulated through what we know (i.e., scientific forecasting and the planetary boundaries framework) and how to get there (i.e., the new sustainability paradigm and sustainability ethics). The widely held and idealised conception of sustainable tourism surfaces not according to whether we should dismiss fact or reason, but rather in our refusal to accept human nature as a fundamental concept in understanding tourism impacts. We argue that this more atomistic approach is why the myth will endure, foreshadowing continued injustices touching every facet of the industry and conceivably every corner of the earth.

2. The Myth of Plutus

In Greek mythology, Plutus is the god and personification of wealth, prosperity, abundance, and agriculture. The myth of Plutus lives on through Aristophanes’s last comedic play of the same name, produced in 388 BC and recognised as his most widely read work (Barkhuizen, 1981). The essence of the play is that society cannot advance morally because of human greed and ambition.

The play begins with Chremylus, a poor, but just Athenian man nearing the end of his life, accompanied by his body-slave Cario, travel to consult the Delphic Oracle on a dilemma related to the fate of Chremylus’s son. Chremylus feels that he should teach the boy the art of knavery because only those who renounce virtue and practise dishonesty end up acquiring wealth and becoming successful. Chremylus is told to follow the first person he meets upon leaving the temple and to persuade him to follow them home. This person happens to be Plutus, taking on the persona of a poor wretch who has been blinded by Zeus so that he would bestow favours and gifts not just to righteous and wise men within society, but to all without regard to merit without prejudice (Smith, 2024). In discussing which men are worthy or not of wealth, Plutus argues that “as soon as they secure my favours and grow rich, their wickedness knows no bounds” (Aristophanes, 2012, p. 4).

The three men hatch a utopian plan to restore Plutus’s sight, insisting that Plutus should not be afraid of Zeus because the latter’s strength comes from the money he uses to wield power over the other gods—money that Plutus gives to Zeus. Plutus responds: “So ‘tis because of me that sacrifices are offered?” “Most assuredly,” Chremylus responds. “Whatever is dazzling, beautiful or charming in the eyes of mankind comes from you. Does not everything depend on wealth?” (Aristophanes, 2012, p. 7). In agreement, Cario reasons that “’tis wealth that all demand and clamour most loudly for” (Aristophanes, 2012, p. 7).

In carrying out their plan, Chremylus encounters Penia, the god of poverty, who explains that they are about to make a mistake, given that wealth and luxury are cross-wired with morality. As the god who bestows virtue in men, she knows that the wealthy can never be as good as the poor because of their fixation on material goods. She argues that “modesty dwells with me [poverty] and insolence with Plutus” (Aristophanes, 2012, p. 26). Chremylus takes Plutus to the shrine of the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, where his sight is miraculously restored. This allows the group to proceed with their plan to redistribute wealth to virtuous and deserving individuals, bringing forth a new era of abundance for the people. The order reverses at this point in the play: the poor become rich, while the rich become poor.

The inevitable thus occurs, as the once-wealthy complain that this new redistribution of wealth is now an injustice as their lives are no longer as bountiful. Even Chremylus, once poor, but now rich, has his once pure motives called into question as an illusion. Although it was important for him to share his new-found wealth with his friends, he now finds them irksome, emerging only when fortune smiles. Other examples include an old, ugly, and wealthy woman who laments to Plutus and Chremylus over the fact that her formally impoverished, but handsome and well-built young man who came to her daily for presents has left her because of his new-found wealth. In subsequent sections, others come to the house of Chremylus (and to Plutus, who is resident there), including a starving priest of Zeus: starving because no one sacrifices anything to the gods anymore in this new era of wealth and abundance. People have what they need. In search of a new saviour, Chremylus offers him Plutus as the new supreme god of all Hellenics. In the last part of the play, however, we see Chremylus change his plan. All are to become wealthy, the poor and the formally wealthy, by insisting that all citizens be good and god-fearing (Barkhuizen, 1981).

Plutus is a story with two principal moral themes. The first is that wealth is blind. The second is that seeking wealth and abundance is an entrenched aspect of human nature, with greed (avarice) consistently destabilizing societal improvements. While we might dismiss Plutus as a folkloric myth, the parallels with tourism are far too savoury, with the pursuit of wealth, abundance, and avarice at all levels of the industry, e.g., brokers, tourists, and communities. Staying with the theme of this paper, we use the Greek term perisseuo, meaning a thing that comes in abundance, to highlight just how far tourism has spiralled out of control using the example of overtourism in island contexts.

Perisseuo

The growth of tourism in recent years has been the topic of considerable debate, especially overtourism and anti-tourism(Pavelka, 2022; Chandok, 2023; Martiny, 2024). Part of the debate concerns factors that include accessibility and convenience, economic growth and prosperity, cultural exchange and exploration, social media and digital influence, and escape from routine and stress (Chandok, 2023). Europe is a well-cited region struggling with overtourism (Martiny, 2024; Rana, 2024), but also Australia (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018) US national parks (Buckley, 2024), Asia (Responsible Travel, 2022), and Japan (Vogt & Qin, 2023). In this last example, the authors write, “Tourism has generated more revenue than semiconductor sales, but polls show locals feel ‘sightseeing pollution’ is detrimental to the nation” (online). Media reports indicate that overtourism is now a global problem (Ganesan, 2024), with a crescendo in the summer of 2024 (Kellman, 2024). Furthermore, it used to be the developing world where the calls for less tourism were made, but few were listening. As tourists turn their sights to the attractions of the developed world, it is indeed ironic that overtourism is just another First World problem (Wassler, 2024). Overtourism has become so bad that Fodor’s Travel (2024) is now publishing a “No List” of places to avoid, because a good portion of the 1.286 million international tourists as of 2023 (UNWTO, 2024) are loving these places to death (Crittendon, 1975; Hall, 2016). The current situation should compel us to pause and think about what the world will look like, with a projected 1.8 billion international tourists forecast for 2030 (UNWTO, 2011), only a few years into the future.

While unsustainable tourism can take place at all scales, it is small islands, such as Santorini (Greece), Skye (Scotland), and Mallorca (Spain), that have become stock cases of perisseuo and particularly vulnerable to overdevelopment, despite theoretically seeming capable of controlling and limiting tourism and accepting only sustainable tourism (Butler & Dodds, 2022b). Smaller islands have historically been subject to uneven forms of development of an unstable and short-term nature, with an inability to respond to higher-pressure development situations (Loukissas, 1982). The failure to do so has meant extremely high ratios of visitors to residents, 133:1 in the case of Santorini (Fallon, 2023), while Andronikou (1987), in his study on tourism in Cyprus, argued that a ratio of just under eight locals to one tourist would be undesirable and bring about both social and psychological problems. Scarce water resources, higher costs of living (including housing prices) for all residents, pollution, and plastic water bottles for thirsty tourists have created an industry judged to be unviable, according to local critics (Fallon, 2023). While sustainable development cases do exist in specific contexts, most are piecemeal and more appropriately classified as “weak sustainability.” As discussed in Hunter (1997) and Fennell and Cooper (2020), weak sustainability is represented by the view that natural and man-made capital are substitutable, which allows for trade-offs between them, with the proviso that overall economic value remains constant or non-declining. The concept of strong sustainability argues that critical forms of natural capital cannot be replaced, e.g., by technology, and have to be preserved to maintain ecological integrity and ensure future well-being. The island of Rügen, Germany, has opted for a “sustainability light” approach as a compromise to bring business onside and build trust (Panzer-Krause, 2017). In Easter Island, scholars worry about another “ecocide,” with tourism as the second environmental collapse due to the island being small, remote and with uncontrolled tourism, unmanaged stakeholders, and ethnic problems threatening good governance (Figueroa & Rotarou, 2016).

Given that the above scenario is appearing increasingly frequently across the globe, even though sustainable tourism has been encouraged and supposedly practised for several decades, it is reasonable to question whether it can be regarded as any more than a myth or wishful thinking. It is necessary, therefore, to explore (1) what we know of the concept and how to get there, and (2) why we will be unable to reach this ‘holy grail.’

3. Sustainability: What We Know, and How to Get There

The principal tool at our disposal to mitigate planetary degradation is sustainable development, now several decades along in its refinement, but shaped by much older philosophies of the past from Buddhist, Sumerian, North American Indian, Hinduism, Mayan, and Mediterranean cultures (Schleicher-Tappeser & Strati, 1999; also Ogryzek, 2023). Well-cited recent initiatives include ecodevelopment (Miller, 1976), the Stockholm Declaration (1972), the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987), Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 21, Rio+5, Kyoto Protocol, Rio+10, and Rio+20, which formulated the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (Basera, 2016). How successful we have been collectively at putting sustainability principles and goals into practice lies in being caught between Scylla and Charybdis, i.e., caught between two equally unpleasant alternatives. On the one hand, we can strive to be sustainable, but in doing so, risk alienating the profit and pleasure motives fundamental to the industry. On the other hand, development risks alienating a state of harmony that is surely an imperative at this juncture of planetary deterioration. Below is a brief overview of what we know (science, including planetary boundaries) and how to get there (the new sustainability paradigm and sustainability ethics) as reasons why sustainable tourism should be well within our grasp.

3.1. What We Know

Sustainable development is scaffolded by a deep foundation of principles (Mensah, 2019), goals (SDG Services, 2024), theories (Shi et al., 2019), and paradigms (Major & Clarke, 2022). For example, the main principle of the UN SDG (2024) is “the common good,” with second-order principles outlined in

Table 1. Principles of sustainable development.

Panovics (2014)

10 Principles of the UN SDGs

The principle of holistic approach. The principle of intra-generation and inter-generation solidarity. The principle of sustainable management of resources. The principle of social justice. The principle of integration. The principle of precaution and prevention. The ‘polluter pays’ principle. The principle of utilizing local resources. The principle of public participation. The principle of social responsibility. Respect for all forms of life. Satisfaction of basic physical needs (water, food, shelter and other requirements for life and dignity) for everyone. Access to knowledge

Support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights. Not be complicit in human rights abuses. Uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining. Support the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour. Support the effective abolition of child labour. Support the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges. Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility. Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies. Work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

Source: Adapted from Panovics (2014); United Nations Global Compact (2025).

compared to those developed by Panovics (2014). Work has been done on sustainability as a paradigm, reflecting comparisons between anthropocentric, biospheric, and noospheric categories (Dotsenko et al., 2021), and Drummond and Marsden’s (1999) dichotomous paradigms of soft sustainability (anthropocentric) and hard sustainability (ecocentric) (see also Gibbons, 2020, p. 2). A sustainability-centric position is advocated over technocentrism and ecocentrism, because the former is considered more rational and achievable (Gladwin et al., 1995). Ecocentrism is an attractive and laudable goal, but internal contradictions and the inability to integrate natural and cultural systems diminish its attractiveness (Gladwin et al., 1995).

The degree to which sustainable tourism has come under scrutiny from scientific assessment initiatives is most notable in climate science. In their detailed introduction to the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Tourism and Climate Change, Scott and Gössling (2022) echo the claims of the United Nations World Tourism Organization et al. that the imperative of climate change is the largest threat to the achievement of sustainable tourism in the 21st century. The authors identify several gaps (e.g., geographic knowledge gaps) and challenges, with the main conclusion that climate change science has not led to adequate preparation of the tourism industry for a net-zero transition. Worrying is the fact that “To date a comprehensive analysis of the integrated carbon and climate risks and associated mitigation and adaptation responses, including any complementary or antagonistic interactions, has not been completed for any tourism destination (at any scale)” (Scott & Gössling, 2022, p. 8). Scott (2025) is even more blunt in stating that there can be no sustainable tourism if we as a tourism community fail on climate change.

Gössling’s (2015) work on post-carbon and low-carbon tourism gets to the heart of the problem. Low-carbon tourism is “Tourism that contributes to emissions lower than the global average for a trip (250 kg CO₂),” while post-carbon travel is “Travel that makes a negligible contribution to climate change” (Gössling, 2015, p. 472). Gössling argues that although it is theoretically feasible to achieve post-carbon tourism, entrenched issues bring us back to reality. Long-haul air travel is foremost among these issues, with forms of compensation like offsetting as costly and fraught with institutional problems. In the end, Gössling (2015) observes that “Notions of ‘carbon-neutral destinations’ (Gössling, 2009) have all too often remained greenwash, with little evidence that any absolute reductions in emissions have been achieved” (p. 478). Such stems from the dominant social paradigm, where an alternative, green shift in tourism is highly unlikely due to rampant consumerism and neoliberal capitalism (Becken, 2017), a point stressed by Cohen (2025) in dealing with hypermobility.

The pace and scale of global transformation can be seen through the planetary boundaries framework, which tracks the accelerating effects of the Anthropocene through nine boundaries: biosphere integrity, climate change, novel entities (e.g., microplastics), stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, ocean acidification, biogeochemical flows, freshwater use, and land-system change. The genesis of the idea stems from Rockström (Rockström et al., 2009), who argued that “‘Planetary Boundaries’ … define what has been termed ‘the safe operating space’ for humanity—if we cross these boundaries we will face a state less conducive to human development’” (p. 472).

Results of an analysis by Richardson et al. (2023) indicate that six of the nine boundaries have transgressed into zones of increasing risk and high risk. Ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, and stratospheric ozone depletion are the three within a zone classified as safe operating space. The authors argue that their investigation is a “wake-up call” for Earth’s sustainability, as we are “now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity” (p. 1, online). The need for business to heed such a wake-up call was recognised by Gladwin et al. (Gladwin et al., 1995), who argued that “most management theorizing and research continues to proceed as if organizations lack biophysical foundations” (p. 875) and query that “Quite simply, how many organizations could exist in the absence of oxygen production, fresh water supply, or fertile soil” (p. 875).

An extension of the planetary boundaries framework was proposed by Raworth (2017), who inserted a social foundation ring of basic human needs within the ring of planetary boundaries. She argued that our collective goal should be to aim for a “sweet spot” where all have what they need without moving beyond an environmental ceiling. Those in the wealthiest countries are consuming above the ceiling, while those in less developed countries are missing elements of the social foundation: water, food, health, education, income/work, peace/justice, political voice, social equity, gender equality, housing, networks, and energy. A zone called a “safe and just space for humanity” requires a regenerative and distributive economy (Raworth, 2017). Regenerative tourism represents a paradigm change, where individuals, businesses, and communities are viewed as “as living ecosystems” to foster “deeper connections to place” (Dotsenko et al., 2021, p. 196). However, as noted by Milanovic (2018), although Raworth’s thinking is fine in theory, what he says needs to be considered is why individuals and collectives in rich countries would vote for such a scheme to solve global issues. Milanovic writes:

“We” should somehow be magically transformed from acquisitive and money-grubbing beings, traits which the system itself encourages in us, to people, who under the same system, are rather indifferent to how well we do compared to others, and do not really care about wealth and income. Short of magic, this is not going to happen (online).

The point of this is to underscore the notion that any model that does not include an explanation and perhaps a solution for human nature is bound to come up empty (see Higham & Miller, 2018; Prince, 2020 for connections between the planetary boundaries framework and tourism). Science can take us only so far. We need values and willpower, presumably, to take us the rest of the way.

3.2. How to Get There

Blueprints for a sustainable future have been developed using scenario analysis (e.g., OECD, 1997; UNEP, 2002; Raskin et al., 2002; see also Schwarz-Herion, 2015), and the Global Scenario Group (GSG) of the Stockholm Environment Institute developed the new sustainability paradigm as an approach to challenge “conventional values, economic structures and social arrangements” in offering a new more civilised form of globalisation that would suit the needs of all humanity (Raskin et al., 2002, p. x). The agents of change for such an initiative include intergovernmental organisations, transnational corporations, civil society, NGOs, scientists, think tanks, round-table groups, and media (Boda, 2021), along with global public awareness campaigns based on values that champion human solidarity, a better quality of life, and environmental sustainability. The increased complexity of human activity and the enormous impacts that these activities have on the biosphere have reached the planetary scale, with sustainable action a moral imperative. How we get to a new sustainable future is through a values-led alteration towards a very different global vision based on lifestyle changes and solidarity with people the world over as an ethics of responsibility for others, nature, and the future (Raskin et al., 2002; see also Boda, 2021; Nagatsu et al., 2020).

Three worldviews and six scenarios are identified by Raskin et al. (2002) including conventional world (scenarios include market and policy reform), barbarization (scenarios include breakdown and fortress world), and great transitions (scenarios include eco-communalism and the new sustainability paradigm). Drivers of change include social, technological, environmental, and political factors central to global transformation (Hunt et al., 2012). The six scenarios of Raskin et al. (2002) are:

• Market forces drive world development: competitive, open, and integrated global markets are the primary drivers of development, while social and environmental concerns are secondary.
• Policy reform assumes that comprehensive and coordinated government action is initiated for poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.
• Breakdown: conflict and crises spiral out of control and institutions collapse.
• Fortress world: an authoritarian response to the threat of breakdown, as the world divides into a kind of global apartheid with the elite in interconnected, protected enclaves and an impoverished majority outside.
• Eco-communalism: while popular among some environmental and anarchistic subcultures, it is difficult to visualize a plausible path from today’s globalizing trends that does not pass through some form of barbarization.
• New sustainability paradigm: This paradigm changes the character of global civilisation rather than retreating into localism. It validates global solidarity, new values, cultural cross-fertilisation, and economic connectedness while seeking a liberatory, humanistic, and ecological transition.

Another values-based framework that establishes a road map to a more sustainable future is Becker’s (2012) model of sustainability ethics. Defined, sustainability ethics are “the ability to establish continuance as a means of orienting human actions and life toward the threefold relatedness of human existence to contemporaries, future generations, and nature” (p. 14). Like the new sustainability paradigm above, the question for Becker is: How can we realize a sustainable future without the assistance of an ethical foundation dictating proper individual and organisational behaviour? In protecting and supporting people of the present day, future generations, and nature, Becker contends that the way to improve these relationships is by moving away from normative ethics (e.g., utilitarianism) towards a focus on virtue ethics (the type of person we ought to be in living the good life) and ethics of care (addressing the unequal relationships between men, women, and the natural world which have solidified over time).

Central to Becker’s work is the need to radically alter ‘meta-structures’ such as technology, science, and economy, like the drivers of change developed by Raskin et al. (2002), which play well into the agendas of the privileged, but not most others. Neoliberalism, selfishness, and Pareto efficiency (no one can be better off without making others worse) have created pronounced disparities worldwide. A change in meta-structures will demand (1) people who are rational, creative, communicative, emotional, and relational instead of selfish utility maximisers to achieve a more holistic ethos; (2) a new model of social contracts reframing science, technology, education, the economy, and so on; and (3) the current paradigm centred on automatic, omnidirectional, and uncontrolled growth must be replaced with an explicit, deliberate, and oriented dynamic based on stability and simplicity (Becker, 2012, p. 102). See Fennell (2018b) for how Becker’s sustainability ethics apply to tourism.

4. Discussion: The Enduring Myth

What is deeply troubling is that while we know how to reach a sustainable future, we are unwilling to take the strides collectively to do so, and the very nature of our enterprise sets us at a disadvantage. This key issue can be amplified through a discussion of Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin, 1968) and the concept of collective will, especially work by Habermas (1962, 1989).

4.1. The Commons Debate

Hardin demonstrated that since early times, the individual can benefit by pursuing a self-serving course of action, even when this is contrary to the well-being of their community and its environment. While Malthusian in its implications of limited supply, the analogy with the old commons (shared mutual community resources) remains true in many settings, which when combined have resulted in not only unequal costs and benefits to societies, but now are threatening the very survival of the planet as a habitat for the human population. Hardin’s example demonstrated that without enforced regulations (the traditional commons relied on mutual agreements on sharing the resource within its carrying capacity), individuals will realize and then take advantage of the fact that by exceeding their share of the resource, they will benefit personally. Such a situation makes it almost inevitable that a voluntary, unenforced arrangement will not remain in place, since it is to every individual’s benefit to break that agreement. Only after some time will it become apparent that the resource is being overused and deteriorating in quality and will ultimately disappear.

In the same way, uncontrolled and mostly unlimited tourism development has the same effects on destinations (Briassoulis, 2015). The concept of sustainability became attractive because it appeared to offer the solution to Hardin’s situation, allowing development and expansion or growth to continue, but only within the limits of future resource needs. The technological fix was seen as the way to increase resource supply for future needs, for example, by creating and increasing access to new destinations, reducing travel costs and time, and providing ‘artificial’ attractions to replace ‘natural’ ones. In reality, however, such developments resulted in increasing and widening demand for tourism with little real increase in supply within natural limits and within the acceptance limits of destination residents, thus setting the scene for overtourism.

An issue that also needs to be resolved is that those breaking or ignoring the limits would still benefit in the short term at the expense of the community in the long term. While the principles of sustainable development have found great favour globally with governments, public agencies, and even the private sector and its supporters, in tourism, as in most forms of economic activity, the application of the principles through rule and enforcement has not materialised, allowing the tragedy of the commons to continue in tourist destinations. One of the main reasons for the failure to resolve overtourism has been identified as being the lack of enforcement of many current plans and policies (Butler & Dodds, 2022a), rather than any failure to identify the issues. Thus, the myth continues that development and growth can continue if sustainable, but sustainability must be defined and translated into management actions and limits. The abundance of Plutus should surely go to those deserving of advantage and abundance, but abundance is not defined, nor are the methods or agents of distribution.

4.2. Collective Will

One can conclude that as long as people can travel, they will continue to do so, and that the industry is committed to enabling them to do so as cheaply and frequently as they can. Such a situation runs counter to sustainable tourism, namely that people will only engage in tourism at a scale compatible with maintaining the resources used by and for tourism. That is the true myth. Part of what makes it mythical is the absence of a collective will to ensure sustainability in all of humanity’s actions. Historically, the commons model worked effectively because the collective will ensured villagers followed the generally unwritten agreement (rules) on use levels. We no longer live in a village, and even less do we travel in one, and there are no rules to be followed or enforced except perhaps at a very local or individual enterprise level.

Collective will has emerged in tourism studies in recent years in the form of collective action (Hwang & Stewart, 2017; Rodriguez-Giron & Vanneste, 2019; Schmidt et al., 2016), knowledge collectives (Ren & Jóhannesson, 2018), collective learning (Oxenswärdh, 2017), and collective intelligence (Shen et al., 2016). The principal theorist on collective will, Jürgen Habermas (1975, 1989) argued that there is a necessary tension between the state and the citizenry for the latter to hold the former accountable. The legitimacy of laws becomes a function of the discourses that take place within this tension and the acknowledgement that it is the citizenry (his notion of the ‘public sphere’) that must have a more formal role in the pragmatic, ethical–political, and moral–practical for collective will formation to take place. Through regulation, the voices and interests of all are heard through the disposition of equal power, especially from “a public opinion arising from the grass roots, of a more or less informed, pluralist and spontaneous public sphere”(Habermas, 1989, p. 153). Importantly, and especially in efforts to tackle sustainability challenges, moral discourses ought to be broad-based as a reference point for human rights (Habermas, 1989). Following largely from Kant’s efforts to imagine a universal order, Habermas argued that as subjective, autonomous agents, we should all follow moral laws, but within the model of a welfare state that is needed to induce freedom, equality, and economic security as essential elements of the public sphere (Habermas, 1962). Indeed, the pluralism of a political, social, cultural, ecological, and economic form supercharges the system. We need our identity. Moreover, along with this identity is the need for a shared mission. Until we have that and can break from our Darwinian tendencies, we will not find common ground in realizing a sustainable tourism future, a utopian myth tantalizingly close in theory, yet so far away in practice.

4.3. Human Nature

However, these Darwinian tendencies are exactly what contributes to our load of troubles. It is the subjective and autonomous nature of human agency that plays most heavily in Hardin’s (1968) views, i.e., individual self-interest leads to collective ruin. But even more deeply, evolutionary biology scholars argue that we are products of our genes, with selective pressures that favour their persistence (and “selfishness”) over time (Dawkins, 1999). Theory shows that we are genetically programmed to be more altruistic towards our relatives over strangers (Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory (Hamilton, 1964)), and if we do extend favours to non-relatives, there is the expectation of return favours down the road (Trivers’ theory of reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971)). We help ourselves ultimately by helping others (see Fennell (2018a), for a discussion of these theories applied to tourism).

There is a robust literature pointing to the selfish and unethical behaviour of agents and organisations, as “behaviour that violates widely accepted standards or rules with the intention of benefitting oneself” (Hillebrandt et al., 2023, p. 159). People who value morality regularly engage in dishonest acts in violation of moral standards to advance their own interests (Shu et al., 2011). Even when organisations place considerable effort into eliminating unethical behaviour, employees continue to behave in self-interested ways (De Cremer & Moore, 2020), with negative implications for social relationships (Hillebrandt et al., 2023). We appear to be even greedier than traditional economic theory assumes (Kirchgässner, 2014). How can we be responsible or sustainable in tourism if we gloss over the principal reason why we cannot or will not? This was recognised early by Wheeller (2004), who wrote:

If, as we are led to believe, tourism is the world’s largest industry, then we should remember it is a world driven largely by avarice, greed, self- interest … We need, therefore, to look first at ourselves [our emphasis] and then at society when we address tourism.

The irony is simply this: we move on from one concept to another, masking the true nature of the problem, which is in fact human nature. The pious hope, discussed by Butler (1990), is more like a Trojan horse, due to “The highly fragmented and extremely competitive nature of the tourism industry, both public and private sectors, mitigates against self or internal control” (Butler, 1990, p. 41). Moreover, as we journey through time as a species, i.e., as we make our way in the manner described by Marcel as Homo viator, our reality is predictably unchanged (Pax, 1988). It is travel that supposedly shapes us: it changes us for the better and allows us to advance positive relationships with others, perhaps superficially. However, underneath this veneer of change is the reality that we do make our way as a function of the values that influence us (Baruchello, 2016), no doubt, but even more deeply as a function of our evolutionary past (Fennell, 2018a).

To echo the quote at the onset of the paper, we must live by rules. We no longer live in a village or a world of 2, 3, or 4 billion people. Suggesting that we should ignore basic individual desires and their logical faults is pointless at best and wishful thinking at worst. We need to establish rules (limits) and enforce these, and once we collectively live by these rules, we have a hope of achieving the lofty tenets of ST. Maintaining that we can have our cakes (enduring destination environments) and eat them (visit when, where, and how often we wish) is the true myth of sustainable tourism. Scarcity, over-utilisation, and greed is part of our human history. We have had trouble balancing use with conservation everywhere and at every moment in our history. Is it not mythical to pretend we have achieved the solution when all the evidence shows otherwise?

At the heart of the international tourism maelstrom, therefore, is a libertarian model, with liberty defined as “the freedom to live as you wish or go where you want” (Cambridge Online Dictionary, 2024). It is not enough in the new era of tourism to live by the words of John Stuart Mill, who argued that “Liberty consists in doing what one desires.” (Mill, 2011, p. x). If life is about the pursuit of happiness, as John Locke first claimed, our immediate sources of pleasure, including tourism and all the problems that stem from seeking to satisfy our immediate needs, fail to provide us with the ability to live a truly virtuous life. The former is more hedonistic, while the latter requires moral and intellectual diligence. To be sure, it is a bounded form of liberty (see Table 1) that should be the aim, but principles do not translate easily into practices.

Furthermore, pro-sustainability pundits now embrace degrowth with neoliberalism as the main culprit in this dialogue, suggesting that local people’s rights should be prioritised over the rights of tourists and corporations (Higgins-Desbiolles et al., 2019; Higgins-Desbiolles & Bigby, 2022). It is understood, and rational, that we should not want exogenous interests coming to communities and “taking what is ours.” However, there is little to suggest that local people, given priority over these other stakeholders, would not pursue their own interests at a micro-scale, leading to what has already been discussed by Malthus, Hardin, and others. We should be mindful that governance failures and competition are alive and well in our communities. Although Hobbesian, harmony, altruism, and symbiosis are subordinate to individual and organisational self-interest, regardless of scale, for reasons noted above. There is not just tension between the state and citizenry, as argued by Habermas, but also within the citizenry.

5. Conclusions

The aim of this paper was to show that sustainable tourism, now the widely accepted benchmark for the present and future responsible tourism industry, is and will continue to be a myth. However, what is playing out in the theatre of sustainable tourism is far from a comedy, but more like a tragedy. The tragedy is that science tells us what we need to do and ethics tells us how to get there, but we still cannot find our way. What complicates the issue even further is the theoretical divide between the paradigm of sustainable development and sustainable tourism. While the former should be based on holism, equity, and a future-oriented strategy for development, tourism is focused on an inward development of objective products that is much less about ecological concern (Guix et al., 2024). Such compelled Sharpley to observe that “’true’ sustainable tourism development is unachievable” … [and that] “the concept of sustainable tourism development is, in effect, a red herring” (Sharpley, 2000, p. 14).

There are, however, indications that the concept of continuous growth, the dominant goal for tourism in recent decades, is being challenged. While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism did not result in a resetting of the aims of tourism towards a more sustainable future as some commentators had argued would happen, there has been an increasing number of arguments presented that call for a fundamental change in priorities in tourism. Dwyer (2023a, 2023b, 2024a, 2024b) in particular has argued for a change in focus to placing the emphasis on well-being in the broadest sense of the term for destination residents as well as tourists, along with a change in the ‘capitals’ approach to recognize the planetary boundaries noted earlier (echoed by Becken & Scott, 2024; Peeters & Papp, 2024). Other proposed changes in the overall approach for tourism include a move towards regenerative tourism (Bellato & Pollock, 2023) and greater empowerment for local governance (Higgins-Desbiolles & Bigby, 2022). Such changes in overall approach may not achieve a truly sustainable tourism but would represent significant steps in that direction and recognize the need for tourism to share responsibility in tackling global problems such as resource scarcity and the effects of climate change. Perhaps we would be better to think of sustainable tourism as at best a ‘guiding fiction’ as McCool (2016) described it, a goal to be aspired to, but not really achievable.

In the end, Plutus is tourism, and this argument is about trying to restore our sight. Which is the myth, and which is not? Is it the story of Plutus or the rhetoric on sustainable tourism and the promise of a better world? Is it realistic to expect potential current tourists to forego, change, or reduce their desires so tourists of the future can enjoy theirs, or can current tourism enterprises at all scales limit their operations so future operators can continue to profit from tourism? Ray Bradbury said, “I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” How we do that using the mantra of sustainable tourism remains a tall order. We certainly are not remaking or restoring it in a manner that would allow us to achieve holism. Such is not possible given that wealth is blind, and the yearning for perisseuo is a deep-rooted part of who we are at the very core.