The paradoxical attributes of tourism for being good and bad at a time makes it open for criticism. This paper questions whether this dualism is inherent in its character or is circumstantial. No stakeholder wants tourism to elude his grasp, why then it goes awry in many cases. To explain this phenomenon the paper takes a back view of the industry and underpins shortfalls that are responsible for its downturn. Barring nature catastrophes, spread of epidemics and war, etc., in most cases, tourism stakeholders were found at fault for ignoring essential tenets of sustainable development; they fall prey to avarice and compromise with short-term market forces resulting in negative consequences in physical and socio-cultural settings. The environment suffers often irreversibly. Mass tourism, weak community resilience, poor knowledge-equipment of stakeholders, aspect of seasonality, unskilled workforce, limited knowledge of ecological systems, policy failure and lack of governance and community inertia are some of the features that weaken tourism industry. Only a few but important features will be discussed in this paper. By comparing stakeholders’ good and bad practices at two mountain destinations, Whistler resort in Canada and Manali in the Indian Himalayas, the paper concludes that paradox in tourism is a myth; tourism is neither good nor bad, it is what stakeholders make of their recreational resources.

Keywords: sustainability; tourism industry; stakeholders; resilience; Manali; Whistler.