This article is concerned with the implications of recent developments in tourism for the 'physical' environment. It is shown that there are some striking changes taking place in how the environment is being 'read', how it is appropriated, and how it is exploited; and that these changes increasingly depend on the economic, social and geographical organization of contemporary tourism. The tourist industry is already having profound environmental consequences. These stem from the fact that much tourism is concerned with visually consuming that very environment, manifest in tourist flows which enable people to gaze upon geographically distant environments, and in the various transformations of the environment which follow from the widespread construction of tourist attractions and from the incredible concentrations of people in particular places. Tourism and its role in promoting environmental consciousness as well as its role in causing environmental damage are discussed in detail. A number of different ways in which an environment is seen as inappropriate for visual consumption through the tourist gaze are outlined. This reveals some of the characteristics that render an environment suitable for the gaze, as well as some of the different forms taken by that gaze.