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For much of this discussion on TOs so far the orientation has been to major TOs, but what of the comparatively small operators in niche markets, are they that different in their impact? For example, adventure tour companies are not without detractors as Seabrook (2007, p. 14) argued:

Adventure tourism scatters debris and waste in formerly inaccessible places on the earth; pristine mountain slopes, ice-floes and high plateau receive their quota of mementos from the unquiet visitations of people avid for sensation and novelty.

A point that might be equally applied to those enterprises promoting scuba diving on coral reefs, or cetacean watching or safari tours, for example, in Kenya or Natal. The latter may well bring into question the reality of SSCM on the part of the TOs involved:

Witness the safari camps provided in Africa to higher paying guests, where rates run upwards of 400 Euros a night and fine wines and gourmet meals are provided to ensure a comfortable eco/sustainable visit. (Butler, 2007, p. 21)

Two specific examples from Jackman and Rodgers (2005) of this are first a packaged safari in the Serengeti, Tanzania involving a mobile camping safari which is comparatively basic but even so the food is of high quality (£300 per night; package based on four people for eight nights from London all inclusive is approx. £2600). The other involves the Lebombo Lodge, Singita on the very edge of Kruger National Park and costs £600 per night. This is a boutique lodge offering luxury (including power shower) in each of the six rooms; as one customer said, ‘We were in a bubble of First World designer comfort surrounded by bush.’ (p. 3).

This raises issues of the operators involved regarding their supply chain and sustainability. Further, and perhaps implicit in SSCM, are the issues that arise in opening up new destinations in hitherto remote places of the globe, for example cruise ships now arriving in previously little known areas, e.g. Tasiilaq and ‘polar tourism’ in general (see Nuttall, 1997; Luck et al., 2010). As Hall and Johnston (1995) in their text on this subject identified, there is a clear need for enforceable codes of conduct which reach across the whole area and are applicable to all enterprises. During the 1990s certainly many codes/guides, whilst supporting tourism development, focused more on the physical environment with little attention to either enterprises or social responsibility. An approach that is based on the principle that by and large stakeholders adopt an ethic of conservation (Holden, 2003; see also Prosser, 1992; Bansal and Howard, 1997). In the case of TOs this may have been overly expectant given that ‘TOs are generally reluctant to accept responsibility for the environments their operations are based in’ (Hudson and Miller, 2005, p. 139) and as Blackstock et al. (2008) affirm, codes of conduct are predicated on the assumption that informing people (that is all those involved) will encourage responsible behaviour. Parsons and Woods-Ballard (2003) in their study into tourism enterprises involving cetacean watching found limited evidence that codes provide enough protection for the cetaceans amongst operators and argue that specific legislation such as that found in New Zealand to protect whales will be required. But as Font and Carey (2005) note, the implementation of such schemes is very limited, which as Cole (2006) argues, the difficulties are not only in implementing but also in the evaluation of the effectiveness of codes and notes the lack of research into their effectiveness. Despite or perhaps because of this, by the late 2000s environmental and social codes of conduct were widespread (Lawton and Weaver, 2009).

The need for such codes undoubtedly arises due to increasing visitor demand and thus opportunities for TOs and local tourism enterprises to capitalize. In the absence of government control and monitoring what control there is may often take the form of a code of practice or guidelines. For example, guidelines for enterprises in the NEAT category, such as Australia’s ‘Tread Lightly’ for off-road vehicles or ‘Leave-no-Trace’ in the USA, were considered to be most advanced in terms of best environmental practices (Buckley, 2000).