Planning a sustainable future for tourism, heritage and the
environment a tool to use when managing and developing regions,
places and tourism products Department of the Environment and
Heritage, 2004 ISBN 0 642 55013 1 About this publication Welcome
to Steps to Sustainable Tourism. This document is designed for
tourism operators, heritage and environment managers, community
groups and others with an interest in places, regions and
associated tourism products. The approach outlined in the
following pages, fosters a mutual understanding of issues and
shows how to work together to achieve a range of sustainable
benefits for tourism, communities, the environment and heritage.
Steps refers often to our environment and heritage so it may be
useful to clarify what we mean by these terms. Environment
refers to ecosystems, and also to cultural qualities and
characteristics of places. Heritage embraces our natural,
Indigenous and historic inheritance – what we think our
descendants should, and would want to, inherit.