Sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism is the concept of visiting a place as a tourist and trying to make only a positive impact on the environment, society and economy. Tourism can involve primary transportation to the general location, local transportation, accommodations, entertainment, recreation, nourishment and shopping. It can be related to travel for leisure, business and what is called VFR (visiting friends and relatives). There is now broad consensus that tourism development should be sustainable; however, the question of how to achieve this remains an object of debate.Without travel there is no tourism, so the concept of sustainable tourism is tightly linked to a concept of sustainable mobility. Thus, in the Zimbabwean context, sustainable tourism seem to be a difficulty thing to achieve since the airways is banned in many countries. As well, the tourist might fear the "political instability" of the country.

The pillars of responsible tourism are therefore the same as those of sustainable tourism – environmental integrity, social justice and economic development. The major difference between the two is that, in responsible tourism, individuals, organizations and businesses are asked to take responsibility for their actions and the impacts of their actions.