Tourism Management in Warm-water Island Destinations . CABI.

This excellent book, edited by Michelle McLeod and Robertico Croes, was all the more indispensable as the challenges facing warm-water island destinations are important. Many of them are micro-states, constrained by resource scarcity, their economies rely upon tourism activity, they often are confronted by economic issues (tourismdependence and diversification difficulties, global competition), by social issues (unemployment, drugs) and/or by environmental issues (global warming, water, waste management). Even if researchers and professionals question these concerns and try to find solutions, we must recognize that the challenges are great and that we need to develop our knowledge and to encourage research. As far as we feel concerned, this book is welcome for many of us.


This excellent book, edited by Michelle
McLeod and Robertico Croes, was all the more indispensable as the challenges facing warm-water island destinations are important. Many of them are micro-states, constrained by resource scarcity, their economies rely upon tourism activity, they often are confronted by economic issues (tourismdependence and diversification difficulties, global competition), by social issues (unemployment, drugs) and/or by environmental issues (global warming, water, waste management). Even if researchers and professionals question these concerns and try to find solutions, we must recognize that the challenges are great and that we need to develop our knowledge and to encourage research. As far as we feel concerned, this book is welcome for many of us.
It contains 12 chapters and is divided in three parts: Island tourism transport and hospitality; Island tourism policy, planning and development, and Island tourism marketing and management. Fourteen experts contributed to the book, among which professionals and researchers whose crossanalyses contribute to the very interest of it.
Beyond the diversity of perspectives, the richness of the book lies in the diversity of approaches and methodologies: the reader will appreciate pluridisciplinarity (human sciences, economics, management science), the mixture of theoretical reflections and empirical studies, and the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The whole offers a very interesting vision of the management of these destinations and defines a challenging research agenda.
The Introduction, by M. McLeod and R. Croes, gives the main definitions, presents the very specificities of warm-water islands as tourist destinations, and appeals for new researches and new perspectives to improve tourism practices within these environments. Combined with Chapter 2 by V. Vanderpool-Wallace and Chapter 7 by R. Dodds, F. Dimanche and M. Sadowski, it sets the scene and identifies a first set of problems faced by these small island developing states. They distinguish by geography, climate and remoteness, but also by their history (because many of them were colonial territories), and their dependence on external stakeholder for their economic and social development. Transportation is one of the first challenges the islands have to face; and beyond transportation, the whole question of infrastructures is raised: airports, marinas, resorts, but also electricity, water and waste treatment networks.
Investments are needed but their profitability relies on a clearly formulated strategic vision and on a pro-active policy. Many of the authors regret that strategy is often focused on short-term benefits, that it lacks originality when differentiation would make it possible to get out of head-on competition with other destinations. A. Crick (Chapter 5) identifies new opportunities of differentiation within the emerging dynamics of "new tourists", the millennials, that, far from the McDonalization of the "old tourists' experiences", are looking for natural and authentic experiences. Authenticity, proximity, localism seem to be keys words that allow to understand new trends in tourism. Music festivals can also stimulate demand. K. J. Semrad, M. Rivera and R. Croes present in Chapter 11, the cases of Curacao North Sea jazz festival and Aruba soul beach music festival. These longitudinal case studies reveal that festivals form opportunities to attract and acquire new tourist market segments. The dynamics of tourist needs and their impact on destination marketing is of no doubt.
As a matter of fact, tourist demand requires attention: R. Croes and J. Ridderstaat propose a very interesting Chapter 4 in which they analyze tourist demand. Looking for a way to avoid a "sluggish development" due to a Beach disease phenomenon and the nonlinearity of tourism development, they ask for a better understanding of demand that would allow actors to anticipate activity and plan appropriate policies.
Tourism policies and tourism planning are said to be one of the major challenges in these islands. Vanderpool-Wallace advocates a proactive policy regarding air transportation that is considered to be intertwined with tourism development, which means that public sector should be able to make decision about it: the governance issue is directly or indirectly addressed by most of the authors of this book. And we can easily understand that the debate goes beyond the involvement of public authorities to concern private actors and the partnerships that can be established between them. This is one of the reasons why M. McLeod proposes to adopt a network perspective. She devotes an excellent 12 th chapter to this methodology. She also worked with N. Scott on the network perspective of destination management (Chapter 10) and with D. Chambers and D. Airey on the tourism policy networks (Chapter 6). This network approach enriches considerably the debate about governance and the making of tourism policies. Their works allow to exhibit the main actors and organizations that can coordinate and influence the destination, and finally to understand that these policies result from a process.
Their works do ask the question of the locals' involvement in the designing of the policies. As mentioned by Dodds and his co-authors, another huge challenge of these islands is social and environmental concern. Environmental concern and sustainable development appear as a watermark of these works even if no chapter is especially dedicated to this issue. Nevertheless, in Chapter 3, S. A. Adams observes that new regulations and certifications appear and shows that small businesses may encounter some difficulties with the conventional processes. Her work reminds us that new policies, new tourist habits, new markets, suppose that small businesses can invest to keep pace. If they don't, they cannot be competitive. The possibility and the ability for local business to benefit from tourism development are at the core of the social concern. As mentioned by Crick, Chapter 5, these islands have to make the balance between the need to import goods and services that are appealing to an international market with the need to support local businesses and to reduce foreign exchange leakage. It means encouraging local businesses and local residents' employment. Finally, what is really important for these small island developing countries is to ensure the well-being of their people. In this regard, the 8 th chapter by R. Croes, M. Rivera, and K. J. Semrad is of great interest and utility. They propose an ontological and epistemological debate about well-being, enlarge the reflection to the relation between tourism and well-being, advocating for an approach based on the subjective well-being. It leads them to the comparison issue. A case study in Aruba is used to show that the connectedness between tourism and well-being is moderated by social comparison and adaptation.
Even if the book is interesting, it has weaknesses that leave the reader a little bit frustrated. One of them is that researches are focused on Caribbean islands. Fortunately, a chapter by N. Seetaram And B. Joubert is devoted to Seychelles! But nothing is said about Maldives, nor Asiatic islands. This Caribbean-centric approach could suggest certain homogeneity of configurations, problems, challenges, which is certainly reductive. Other studies would have been of great interest. This weakness appeals for more researches in this field.
Having reading the book, many questions remain. We regret the environment and sustainable development issues not to be deepened enough. Global warming makes these islands excessively vulnerable. Harvey, Irma, Josey, Maria have recently devastated warm-water islands, turning them into highrisk countries. They have to invest in new and strong infrastructures. Because they have to deal with a beautiful but dangerous nature, their "country-risk" index takes a new dimension. Infrastructure and insurance issues are important but not the most important ones. Social issues deserve much more attention.
Except for one chapter, little attention has been paid to the inhabitants, to their development, to the distribution of wealth (and especially the wealth created by tourism), to the community-based tourism issue or to the incredible dependence of these economies on external stakeholders. And nothing was said about their culture or their religion, about education and employment, and about the cost of living, the cost of electricity, or the cost of land (affected by tourism activities); in short, about problems relating to the human development of these destinations. In that respect, the book offers a reductive vision of the management of these destinations, which frustrates the reader. Human development cannot be isolated from tourist destination management issues within these tourism-dependent small island developing states.
Finally, we would have appreciated a strong conclusion. The book is more like conference proceedings than a comprehensive research book. The chapters form a constellation of ideas, concepts, studies, but the book as a whole would have benefit from a general statement that should have deepen the common thread and open the research agenda.
Despite these weaknesses, we encourage its reading and remind how necessary it was. It proposes a great and challenging research agenda!