Responsible Tourism (RT) is a new concept linking tourism with all its stakeholders to its environment. RT concept is more holistic and recent in its approach, which has to a greater extend bridged the ambiguities of the earlier sustainable development tourism models like ecotourism. In fact, RT is projected as alternate tourism that assimilates positive impacts in a sustainable way, unlike Mass Tourism. Protecting and enhancing nature, society, and culture from the negative impacts of tourism, destination centric optimization of the economic impacts,etc are theoretically stated equal to that of the visitor experience, as evident from the famous punch line better places for people to live in and better places to visit. The paper attempts to compare the views of mass tourism and RT, against the economic models of capitalism and socialism. The authors propound that Mass Tourism, with its exploitation of tourism resources, is more of a capitalistic phenomenon. Whereas RT with its sustainable approach is more of a socialistic phenomenon. The authors also attempt to historically analyze the evolution of the two tourism philosophies, and economic systems along with some light on Marxian thoughts on the environment, sustainability, and Responsible Tourism.
Key words: Responsible Tourism- Sustainability-Sustainable Development- Sustainable Tourism-Eco-TourismMarxism-Economic System.
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