The goal of sustainable tourism becomes easier to achieve when there is a shared vision from government officials, business leaders and the community, according to two visiting experts who have seen the model successfully implemented in other visitor destinations.

Victoria Edwards, research director of the School of Environmental Design and Management at the University of Portsmouth, says that her hometown of New Forest, England, since the 1980s has been embracing the concept of sustainable tourism, which is defined as sustaining the environment and historical and cultural heritage of a region, while simultaneously sustaining its economic growth.

She cited the example of a brand endorsement where the local produce gets recognized with a "New Forest Marque" that goes on everything from wooden souvenirs to a special breakfast consisting of bacon that's been produced in the area, mushrooms, tomatoes and eggs.

"It's a marketing spin but it really is helping promote local produce," Edwards said.

Edwards and Kathryn Janda, senior researcher at the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, spoke on sustainable tourism last week at the University of Hawai'i's School of Travel Industry Management.

Edwards, who also founded Forest Holidays LLP in the United Kingdom, has a background in natural resource management. "Ecotourism is a very niche market — about 5 percent of tourism," she said.

In 1990, she worked on a project in the United States on how to make nature conservation pay by determining what "economic contribution they could make without destroying those areas."

Now, she's teaching a master's level study in ecotourism. "It's about nature-based tourism but it's also taken care not to be a hypocrite and have some integrity in the way it supplied accommodations, dealt with transport and supported local economies," Edwards said.

Both Janda and Edwards believe that the trend toward sustainable tourism will move faster as the visitors themselves push for it.

And they said some businesses and communities may find they need to discard their old assumptions about what their customer wants.

"They assume that's what the customer wants. Increasingly, what we're seeing in tourism is what the customer wants is local distinctiveness," Edwards said.

"They've traveled to Hawai'i to experience Hawai'i. They want levels of comfort and they want levels of quality in food but they want something different. They want to feel like they're in Hawai'i."

Janda said there's an increasing awareness that such planning has advantages. "Spending money on it now is going to be cheaper than spending money on it later."

And Edwards says there's awareness that what's good from the environment can be economically beneficial to the business. "It can save money; it can increase occupancy."

Janda, who is originally from the United States, said countries in Europe have been more interested in climate change, energy efficiency and other concepts.

She said Europe has started labeling buildings with certificates that show the energy-use profiles, in the way the EnergyStar label describes efficiency of appliances.

"At some point, the U.S. will start to grapple with resource limitations," Janda said. "We are behind Europe in that regard," while Europe has been coping with fuel taxes, high fuel prices and other issues for decades.

She sees more interest in resilient building that can handle extreme weather and energy interruptions. "If you build the wrong kind of building, which is a sealed glass box, chances are that you'll be much more disrupted," Janda said.

She noted that some Hawai'i buildings already use natural ventilation as an option and feature stairs as well as elevators in the design.

"A tall glass building that's sealed is really not what you want to put in the face of a hurricane," she said.

Edwards said tourism companies are joining the global trend of creating new product lines to cater to the environmentally conscious market. Developers are proposing exclusive ecoresort development in place of traditional condos.

But said most customers won't fall for "greenwash" or faux environmentalism. "If it's going to be done, it's got to be done with integrity."