Tourism and sustainable development have been a much studied and contested field of research. Our work can therefore be seen as an experiment - in fact, it is intended to be a debate paper. We cannot even claim that this volume was born of a healthy compromise. We have different opinions of the definitions, processes, phenomena and the current system of tourism itself. The most contested concepts were included in the title - time will tell whether we were right to do that. We are aware that the concept and interpretation of the development of tourism on an ecological basis - or in other...