The idea of sustainability is important for the rural tourism development and especially for the future of rural areas and communities. While there are criticisms towards the sustainable rural tourism as a concept, the existing frustrations haven’t resulted viable alternatives to sustainability as a develop-ment and policy paradigm. Nevertheless, while conceptual plurality seems unavoidable the ex-pressed wider challenges underline the need to un-derstand and potentially reframe the concept and how to overcome the noted shortcomings of sus-tainable tourism (Wheeller 1993). A key question is on what conditions sustainable rural tourism could represent sustainable development beyond the lo-cal destination slo-cale as the lolo-cal solutions to global challenges may not be enough for the future (Saa-rinen 2006). Sustainability in tourism is a matter of both local and global responsibilities. Instead of tourism-centric approaches, the industry as an economic actor needs to be decentralised in the
rural development discourses and practices. Tour-ism’s role in rural development can be seen as posi-tive but it is often evaluated in terms of tourism em-ployment, tourism revenue and tourist fl ows, etc.
However, rural development involves deeper and qualitative goals, referring to an improvement in the quality of life and well-being of the people (see Pike et al. 2000) which are not automatic results of tourism development/growth indicators (Sharpley 2009). Thus, based on the original conceptualisa-tion of sustainable development (see WCED 1987), sustainability in rural tourism development should primarily be connected with the needs of com-munities – not a certain industry – and the use of natural and cultural resources in rural areas in a way that will safeguard human needs and provide quality of life and well-being in the future (Red-cliffe 1987). Obviously, the needs of communities and the tourism industry are not necessarily con-fl icting as tourism can be a fruitful tool for sustain-able rural development but as indicated it may not always be the most favourable use of resources in specifi c locations (Butler 1999, see Bianchi 2004;
Cohen 2002; Wall 1997).
The search for responsibility in sustainable tourism has demonstrated ‘a market failure’. This indicates that an external intervention is quite clearly needed: the on-going new governance hol-lowing out state responsibilities and emphasising corporate, non-governmental or citizen (customer) responsibilities (see Rhodes 1996) has not deliv-ered responsibility in practice for sustainable rural tourism development. Therefore, as volunteer, in-dividual and self-organising modes of tourism de-velopment are not creating structures that would guide the main stream tourism sector towards sustainability, at least the process is taking too long time, stronger governmental and inter-govern-mental policies and regulations are most probably needed (see Jessop 2010). Otherwise, it seems to be almost impossible to include the future costs of current tourism development practices and devel-opment discourses, for example (see Jamal 2013).
Obviously, this is very challenging but unavoidable direction to take – if the tourism industry is aimed to be guided towards sustainability beyond eco-nomic and industry-centred reasoning.
Thus, instead of going beyond sustainability in tourism, as suggested by some contemporary views, there is rather a need to take steps back towards the original ideas of sustainable development as ethi-cally oriented approach based on the triple-bottom line of sustainability. The ethical (and ideological) element in sustainable rural tourism development is built upon both theory and practice. To seriously
expect the industry (as a private sector economic actor) to substantially share its benefi ts or decen-tralise its position in its own operations may not be realistic in practice. Therefore, the industry as a whole and its customers need to have much fi rmer regulative frameworks that would create and guide a wider responsibility and a path towards sustain-able rural development in tourism emphasizing ecological, sociocultural and economic dimensions equally.
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