Policy learning and policy failure in sustainable tourism governance: from first- and second-order to third-order change?

Sustainable tourism presents a paradox. At one level sustainable tourism is a success given the concept's diffusion among industry, government, academics and policy actors. Yet, it is simultaneously a policy failure given the continued growth in the environmental impacts of tourism in absolute terms. This paper analyses sustainable tourism, and the governance systems for sustainable tourism, via the concepts of policy learning and failure. The tractability of sustainable tourism policy problems is identified. Policy learning is discussed in instrumental, conceptual/paradigmatic and political learning/strategic terms. Although policy failure should encourage learning with respect to sustainable tourism this has only related to first- and second-order change which focus on changes to indicators and settings rather than the dominant policy paradigm. This is despite the dominant paradigm of “balanced” sustainable development that promotes economic growth failing on a number of indicators. A reason for this may be the unwillingness of key actors in tourism policy networks to acknowledge policy failure. The paper concludes that although exogenous factors such as a crisis event may lead to policy paradigmatic change, there is insufficient evidence that such a shift in sustainable tourism policy will necessarily occur given the entrenched dominance of the existing paradigm.