Tourism Management in Warm-water Island Destinations

Michelle McLeod, Robertico Croes, Michelle McLeod, Robertico Croes

• Publisher: CAB International
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786390950
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Warm-water islands are a cohesive group of islands distinguished by their geography and remoteness, history as former colonial territories, and dependence on external stakeholders for their economic and social development. Warm-water island destinations also have a year-round tourism industry. These island tourism destinations are facing unprecedented adjustment challenges in the wake of increasing globalization and susceptibility to external shocks, and are in search of appropriate policy responses to that globalization. It is critical for small islands to understand how these challenges affect tourism performance and how they impact their residents. Tourism Management in Warm-water Island Destinations unearths the critical aspects that contribute to tourism development and growth in islands. Particular emphasis is placed on destinations such as the Caribbean, with lessons learned that are applicable to other island tourism contexts in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific. · Presents emerging research themes and methodology;· Provides insight into factors that result in successful and unsuccessful cases;· Features a focus on Cuba and its reintroduction to the tourism landscape. This book provides a platform for emerging systemic perspectives of the various aspects of island tourism, with the view that strategies for the management and development of tourism in island environments can be improved and will be of interest to those studying and researching within destination management.

1 Overview of Tourism in Warm-water Island Destinations

MICHELLE MCLEOD^1* AND ROBERTICO CROES²

¹The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica; ²University of Central Florida, Florida, United States of America

^*E-mail: [email protected]

1.1 Background and Rationale

Island tourism is a unique form of tourism that requires exemplification. An island is a piece of land surrounded by a body of water. The physical dimensions are varied and these landforms may occur as archipelagos with several islands, atolls, islets and general masses occurring within close range and islands being included based on their appearance during high and low tides. Island formations originate from tectonic activities involving the Earth’s crust and these activities provide islands with certain geographical features, such as the Pitons or volcanic plugs in St. Lucia. Island tourism denotes tourism activities within these island environments.

As tourism continues to be a dominant global activity for economic gain and employment, there is a need to understand how the business of tourism affects island environments. Principally, islands are physically resource-constrained with small physical spaces and population sizes. If one was to categorize islands, this would mainly be based on size, with small islands being identified not just by the physical landscape, but more so by having a population of less than 1.5 million (Croes, 2016); and larger islands being those with a greater number of inhabitants. From a resource-constrained perspective, one wonders how the fortunes of tourism growth and development on islands can be managed and maintained.

Tourism activities occur on islands as the resources within islands are natural attractors to tourist markets based on climatic, geographic and cultural features. Islands are some of the most diverse landscapes located in tropical and temperate climates. For ease of identification, although not a strict boundary, warm-water islands are located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.5° north and south of the equator respectively (Fig. 1.1). Islands that fall within the tropical zone include those in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

Fig. 1.1. World map showing islands between Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn (immediate lines above and below the equator). (From https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/ref_maps/physical/pdf/world.pdf)

The Caribbean is a main hub for island environments and island tourism. The geographical characteristics of islands in the Caribbean can be categorized based on the nature of the rocks, either limestone or volcanic (Boniface et al., 2012). The Caribbean is comprised of islands in the Lesser Antilles as the smaller islands in the Eastern Caribbean, such as Antigua and Barbuda and St. Lucia; and the islands in the Greater Antilles, the larger islands, such as Cuba and Jamaica. The Caribbean region is positioned east of Central America, and stretched out between North and South America. A Caribbean island is so assigned based on its shoreline touching the Caribbean Sea. The region’s location to main tourist generating markets is a major advantage for the emergence of tourism activities in the Caribbean. As such, the Caribbean region has a long history of tourism development and management (see Holder, 2013; McLeod, 2015) and is, therefore, an excellent example for considering tourism management principles and practices in island destinations.

Besides the Caribbean, warm-water island destinations are also located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Indian Ocean has some of the most remote islands in the world such as the Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Tourism has become a main source of income and economic activity; however, the economic dependence on tourism of the islands in the Indian Ocean was put under the spotlight following the 2004 tsunami. The events of the tsunami showed the real impact of physical forces on tourism and the resilience of the tourism sector in the aftermath. The islands of the Pacific are bunched in the South Pacific with a number of islands above the Tropic of Capricorn. According to Apostolopoulos and Gayle (2002, p.6) many islands are microstates that are constrained by resource scarcity and few viable alternatives, hence tourism dependence.

The cultural diversity is also an attractor to island environments. Islands offer inhabitants relaxed lifestyles in culturally enriched areas such as the Caribbean and the Pacific where there is an intermixing of various cultures. Based on African, Asian and European influences, many island destinations have become cultural melting pots with an emergence of distinct cultures that are matched with the national identities of sovereign island states.

Islands are natural tourism hubs as their scenic beauty allures the fantasy-driven motives of tourists, who yearn for a rebirth of existence from mundane and banal lives, through tourist experiences. The shoreline is a main attractor of the island tourism experience. Islands that are smaller in size with close distances to the sea are more favourable to create the common imagery that island tourism provides. Larger distances from the sea have resulted in tourism facilities and amenities being zoned within close proximity to the sea to immerse the tourist and create the fantasy of tourism experiences.

Within the constraints of an island, the dilemma of meeting tourist expectations against the needs of a host population requires balance, and therein is the importance of a tourism management approach to island tourism. The next two sub-sections outline island tourism management and island tourism research to support the management principles and practices that can improve the fortunes of island tourism.

1.2 Island Tourism Management

Island tourism management involves the management of tourism activities within island destinations. An island destination is defined as an area with amalgamated tourism products and services that provide a tourism experience within an island environment. Within any one country there can be one to several destinations. Hotels and attractions are the main co-located activities that would form the basis for destination designation. In identifying the location of a tourist destination, the transport element is a supporting resource to convey the tourist, and is not a prime influencer in increasing the tourist length of stay as would be hotels and attractions.

The scope and scale of tourism are important considerations of island tourism management. Scope relates to the range of tourism activities such as the types of hotels, attractions and mix of activities. Scale relates to the volume of tourism activity with respect to time and space. Seasonal variations relating to peak and non-peak times of tourist arrivals from the country of origin are the main elements of scale. Scope and scale combine to create a tourism pattern within island destinations. Understanding this pattern is a key ingredient in planning and implementing tourism growth and development strategies.

Some assessment of an island destination has to be conducted to depict the pattern of tourism activities and to apply the principles and practices of tourism management. Tourism management is the planning, organizing and controlling of tourism products and services to achieve some purpose or goal. As was mentioned previously, tourism activities create a pattern within island environments. This pattern has to fit within an existing physical space that is already inhabited and in some instances already constrained. It is an understanding of the enablers of the island tourism phenomenon that helps tourism management to create the greatest opportunity. With constrained resources, economic, sociocultural and environmental impacts and foreign dominance among other challenges, a real opportunity that this volume provides is to improve on the management of tourism within island environments. One of the major challenges for small island destinations in this century is the balance between sameness and uniqueness. Sameness is grounded in the need for efficiency, and therefore scale, in order to face rising costs in generating a tourist product; while uniqueness is related to the need for insular authenticity (Croes, 2011). Such an approach is supported by sound research approaches for policy making and problem solving and this will be addressed in the next section.

1.3 Island Tourism Research

New research perspectives and approaches are needed to improve the tourism practices within island environments, not only in the Caribbean, but across the globe. Traditionally, research about island destinations has focused on two main issues, sustainability and competitiveness (Graci and Dodds, 2010; Carlsen and Butler, 2011; Croes, 2011). In the island tourism research context, sustainability concerns the long-term viability of a tourism offer within the island destination whereas competitiveness concerns the resilience of the island destination to continually attract tourist markets. The issue is whether these two goals are mutually compatible, in that, competitiveness may not be sustainable, and sustainability may not lead to competitiveness. Hence the reason for the need examine and explore the island tourism phenomenon with new perspectives and develop new areas of research to refocus the dilemma between sustainability and competitiveness.

Island tourism research should involve a refocus on the main purpose for tourism activities within islands, which is for the host community to obtain benefit. This is a growing concern of island governments, businesses and academics (see Croes, 2016). Tourism activities should improve the quality of life of island inhabitants and provide profit for local communities. While tourists obtain a benefit through a rewarding visit to the destination, equally the host population must derive equal, or more than, gains from tourism activities. Refocus will provide a new perspective to obtain the right balance between hosts’ and tourists’ benefits, for win–win tourism growth and development, including addressing issues concerning access and profitability (see McLeod et al., 2017).

From a demand perspective, emerging trends in the way tourism is bought and sold can result in a fall off of tourist markets. From a supply perspective, new types of tourism products and services, such as those in the sharing economy, have emerged to compete with traditional tourism offers. Dynamic changes in the business of tourism have an influence on the possibility of managing tourism within island destinations. In some instances, tourist arrivals have declined in the Caribbean (see McLeod et al., 2017).

While tourism benefits in the short term seem clear, its benefits in the long run are not self-evident. Despite the significant impact of tourism globally, the resultant developmental effects on small island destinations have been uneven thus far. Issues and challenges, such as the impact of globalization on quality of life, competitiveness and uniqueness; the effects of climate change; accessibility; emerging demand exigencies triggered by demographic changes; Cuba’s reinsertion into the Caribbean’s tourism landscape and the potential impact on the competitiveness of Cuba and other Caribbean islands; and the constant alignment between the local industry and emerging demand patterns, require quick, savvy and smart destination management.

Given the dominance of tourism on warm-water islands with year-round tourism activities, it is important that a new course of research be charted around tourism management of island destinations. Warm-water island tourism destinations are a cohesive group of islands distinguished by geography and remoteness, history as former colonial territories, and dependence on external stakeholders for their economic and social development. Warm-water island tourism destinations also have a year-round tourism industry.

Tourism is a relational phenomenon and the activities and practices within the tourism industry are systemic. The island environment is contained in many instances over a small geographic scale and thus islands are ideally suited to study the systemic nature of tourism. Small island destinations are facing unprecedented adjustment challenges in the wake of the increasing process of globalization, and are in search of appropriate policy responses to that globalization. It is critical for small islands to understand how these challenges affect tourism performance and how they impact their residents.

1.4 Structure of the Book

This volume about tourism management in warm-water island destinations begins with this overview, Chapter 1, and is divided into three parts. The first part, Chapters 2 to 5, is about resources for islands, including transport and hospitality, and demand for islands. This part addresses the core resources of tourism products and services to suggest principles and practices to manage these in island environments. Chapter 4 addresses the demand for islands including the re-emergence of Cuba on the tourism landscape of the Car...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors and Contributors
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• 1 Overview of Tourism in Warm-water Island Destinations
• PART I: Island Tourism Transport and Hospitality
• Part II: Island Tourism Policy, Planning and Development
• Part III: Island Tourism Marketing and Management
• Index
• Back Cover