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It is inescapable that such codes of conduct are encompassed within SSCM. This is well illustrated in demand for hiking along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. The government introduced guidelines and a code of conduct for tour guides which included restricting visitor numbers, increasing visitor charges and that tourists should be gathered into groups, each with their own guide. But issues still arose, on the one hand concerns were raised over who was actually checking the numbers of visitors and also that some local TOs were more interested in making money than concern for the environment (Bedding, 2000). An alternative example, where tourism development has been managed and controlled with the assistance of a local supporting network is that of the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park (Holden, 2005). But what is it like today? Similarly ecotourism packages which were mostly to be found in less developed countries (Wight, 2002) but latterly there has been a growing number in the ‘western’ world (as Destination Management Organizations et al jump on the bandwagon), which partly accounts for Pratt’s (2011) analysis that ecotourism is growing six times faster than the sector (e.g. NEAT) average. But what has happened since to those small tourism enterprises which were developed in the early days of ecotourism destinations? For example, Belize was once renowned for ecotourism but has since developed more into mass tourism and Cancun arguably even more so. An outcome that is certainly raising concerns over the application of the basic principles on which ecotourism is based, namely ‘a natural setting, ecological sustainability and an environmentally educative or interpretative element’ (Page and Dowling, 2002, p. 58). To which one should also add, shows consideration for and, as appropriate to the setting; supports the community. Aspects which may also gain little recognition as Stern et al.’s (2003) study based on four communities living on the periphery of two National Parks – the Corcovado and Piedras Balancas in the Osa Conservation Area in the southeast of Costa Rica – found that the ecotourism developments involved actually achieved very little in regard to these four communities. Overall it is very unsafe to assume that ecotourism developments, and thus the enterprises involved, fit well with sustainability particularly in terms of sustainable consumption, as Redclift (2001) argues, when meaning and use are context dependent.

Such cases bring into question whether TOs and tourism enterprises in the early stages of destination development consider that they have some responsibility for the outcomes of their operations and certainly brings into contention SSCM in such instances. Partly in their defence is that planning and control are primarily the domain of government, though such a defence might well be considered no excuse, especially when considered in terms of sustainability and social responsibility. But it should also be recognized that negative impacts can equally arise in apparently planned and controlled destination developments. As Li’s (2004) research based on ecotourism projects in nature reserves found, negative consequences arising from ‘unexpected negative influences’ (2004, p. 559) identified as partly due to too many visitors and also limitations on the water supply, which raises substantive questions over the initial planning and more importantly control procedures.