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Introduction
History has shown that tourism and its development have impacted in some way, everything and everyone that it has touched. Ideally, these impacts should be positive in terms of benefits to destinations and their residents. As such, governments often commit money and other resources to support the growth and development of tourism and often turn a blind eye to its negative impacts. However, over emphasis on economic benefits has often led to adverse physical and social consequences. The reason for this is the simple fact that, as tourism development and tourist activity expands, so too does the potential harm, social impact and potential for human induced harm and disturbance to destination residents and the environment.
Tourism is often viewed by island states as a panacea to their adverse economic situations since it presents an opportunity for these countries to diversify their economy, and reduce their reliance on traditional primary products. This is especially highlighted in the Caribbean region, where, for over four decades tourism has grew steadily, contributing significantly to the economy of these island states. Throughout the Caribbean, tourism has created jobs and provided investment opportunities and often is the most dominant economic activity in several of these island states. The contribution of tourism to the Caribbean region is extremely significant. For example, in 2004, tourism contributed 14.8 per cent of the Caribbean's GNP and accounted for over 2.4 million jobs, which represented 15.5 percent of total employment ([6] World Travel & Tourism Council, 2004). In fact, [4] Jayawardena (2003) argued that not only is tourism seen as the most significant economic sector in the majority of Caribbean countries, but its prominence in the development of these island states has led to over reliance on this economic sector. Unfortunately, often times, the net impact of tourism on these island states and particularly within host communities are not widely understood, nor are the benefits derived from tourist activity. Hence, the positive benefits derived from tourism often overshadow and masks some of the negative consequences.
The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that can be adopted by tourism planners to mitigate the negative consequences of tourism. Since tourism development is at various stages in the Caribbean, the paper presents an ameliorative...