for example, refers to a number of studies that have looked at impacts on host communities, covering such areas as language changes, land tenure, desecration of community life, begging, prostitution and crime. Finucame (1992: 13) expressed a concern that ‘heavy tourist exposure will result in a gradual erosion of indigenous language and culture or the creation of a commercialized culture’. Johnston and Edwards (1994: 475) argued that responsible tourism may represent structural adjustments, but not necessarily the structural transformations required to make tourism sustainable. They added that sustainability is a ‘distracting’, and arguably unobtainable notion.