The sustainability concept has become popular after it was first used in almost three decades ago in what is now a renowned report, Our Common Future by Brundtland’s World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987).  Although much of its use by policy makers, NGOs and business community has come to mean protecting the environment from further damage or sometimes a simple marketing gimmick, the academic community adopted this shibboleth as a vade mecum for ultimately creating the Shangri-La, a utopian ideal, to be reached via sustaining the culture, society, and welfare of local communities. Increasing women’s participation in societal affairs and labor force, democratizing economic opportunity and human rights and locals’ participation in decision-making are a few tenets of sustainability.  In response to these developments, the tourism industry responded by “green-washing” hotels, restaurants and tour companies as part of its sustainability strategy while tourism scholars rushed quickly reorganizing their research effort around this theme. A crude synthesis of debate surrounding the issue of sustainable development in the last twenty-five years indicates that achieving the goals of sustainable development would require a shift in culture and change in human value systems.