diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 5bcd94fb2..26e6ee447 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -10,4 +10,4 @@ before_install:
  - sudo apt-get update -qq
  - sudo apt-get install -qq libboost-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-python-dev libboost-regex-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev python-nose libicu-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libtiff-dev libz-dev libfreetype6-dev libxml2-dev libproj-dev libpq-dev libgdal-dev libcairomm-1.0-dev python-cairo-dev libsqlite3-dev
 
-script: scons configure DEMO=False CAIRO=False INPUT_PLUGINS=shape,csv,osm OPTIMIZATION=2 JOBS=2 FAST=True CXX="$CXX $CXX_SCONS" WARNING_CXXFLAGS=$WARNING_CXXFLAGS && sudo make install
+script: scons configure DEMO=False CPP_TESTS=False CAIRO=False INPUT_PLUGINS=shape,csv,osm OPTIMIZATION=2 JOBS=2 FAST=True CXX="$CXX $CXX_SCONS" WARNING_CXXFLAGS=$WARNING_CXXFLAGS && sudo make install
diff --git a/SConstruct b/SConstruct
index 7c035a09f..79150c9ce 100644
--- a/SConstruct
+++ b/SConstruct
@@ -326,6 +326,7 @@ opts.AddVariables(
     BoolVariable('RENDERING_STATS', 'Output rendering statistics during style processing', 'False'),
 
     BoolVariable('SVG_RENDERER', 'build support for native svg renderer', 'False'),
+    BoolVariable('CPP_TESTS', 'Compile the C++ tests', 'True'),
 
     # Variables for optional dependencies
     ('GEOS_CONFIG', 'The path to the geos-config executable.', 'geos-config'),
@@ -1742,7 +1743,8 @@ if not HELP_REQUESTED:
 
     # build C++ tests
     # not ready for release
-    SConscript('tests/cpp_tests/build.py')
+    if env['CPP_TESTS']:
+        SConscript('tests/cpp_tests/build.py')
 
     # not currently maintained
     # https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/issues/1438