Students will have a broad understanding of environmental issues and their impact upon the tourism industry, therefore subject areas such as pollution, waste management and biodiversity will be a primary focus. Awareness and the understanding of the implications of tourism impacts, especially on socio-cultural and environmental aspects, are critical to properly guided sustainable tourism planning and development. The natural and cultural environments of communities and global destinations will be explored to enable students to critically interpret tourism interdependency and the changes and development of domestic and international tourism policy. The course critically examines tourism planning as a process and as a set of techniques for sustainable tourism development. It focuses on the physical environment of tourism planning, and the social, cultural and political realities of planning and policy making.