Tourism community relationships represent a research agenda of some
significance in the total picture of studies on the development of tourism. The
works of Hawkins (1993) and Ritchie (1993), of Krippendorf (1987) and Murphy
(1981, 1985, 1998), have all provided a basis for highlighting the centrality of
tourism community relationships in the future of tourism. In an identification of
major issues shaping global tourism policy Hawkins (1993) lists nineteen issues,
five of which are centrally linked to the social and community impacts of tourism.
Similarly, Ritchie (1993) offers a research agenda to encourage and facilitate
resident-responsive tourism which he has also identified as a core driving force of
tourism for the new millennium. Murphy’s work on a community-driven tourism
planning approach has an explicit recognition that communities must be assessed
in terms of their perception, preferences and priorities for tourism planning and
development while Krippendorf directly argues for and describes new
approaches to planning for tourism involving residents. The tourism community
relationships issue is central to arguments about sustainable tourism and despite
the dominance of a biophysical language to describe the resources of tourism in
the sustainability debate, the original conceptions of this term were all closely
aligned to a concern with the well-being of communities (Pearce 1995).