Abstract Tourism today has a problem. It is addicted to growth, which is incompatible with sustainability goals. Despite three decades discussing pathways to sustainable tourism, tourism authorities continue to promote tourism growth despite the ecological and social limits of living on a finite planet. This article argues that tourism must be understood and managed with a wider context of sustainability. Additionally, strategic approaches to transitioning to a sufficiency approach to tourism and leisure is essential if sustainability is to be secured. Recommendations include: transforming the United Nations World Tourism Organization into an Office for Sustainable Mobilities, creating a global Tourism Wealth Fund, fostering diverse approaches to tourism strategies for development and regulating and managing tourism for a better balanced accounting for fairness, ecological limits, human benefit and sustainable futures. The growth fetish is resulting in tourism killing tourism. An approach focused on sustaining tourism is not a sustainable form of tourism send proof to Editor as well as author.