Search results

This editorial aims to situate the papers chosen for this special issue within academic literature and identify their contributions to new knowledge.

The editorial first discusses tourism research literature pertinent to the idiosyncrasies of destination management in island contexts. Second, the paper identifies the contributions made to this field by the authors and the implications of their innovative research for island tourism and destination management.

Each paper contributes, in its way, to the field of island tourism, either by integration of explorations of theory, shifting paradigms or revealing new knowledge. This special issue contains two seminal papers by top academic leaders of the fields of islandness and HRM in island destinations. It also presents papers that comment on destination management issues at macro and micro levels.

Collectively this collection of papers offers new perspectives concerning the challenges of creating destination image in peripheral locations, the impacts of global mobilities (inward and outward) on destination labor markets, models for sustainable destination development, the welcome extended to visitors and returning locals by island communities, destination positioning strategies and service interactions.

The purpose of this study is to synthesize the published works about tourism in the island. Island destinations, especially smaller ones, suffer the negative effects of tourism more than other destinations. This is because of the characteristics of island destinations and the negative impacts arising from their inadequate management by different stakeholders. For these reasons, and conversely because tourism favors the social and economic development of islands, there has been a great deal of research published on insular tourism in the literature at a global level. Despite the number of studies carried out from different approaches, none have synthesized this scientific production. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is the use of a bibliometric and descriptive approach to carry out a thorough review of studies published on tourist development in island destinations.

The authors use a bibliometric and descriptive approach to carry out a comprehensive review of the published studies on tourism development in island destinations in the past decade with special emphasis on the items analyzed, places of analysis and scientific journals that have addressed this topic.

The results of the analysis of the literature show the interest of the study of tourism in island destinations. This interest is partly due to the attraction that tourists have for this type of destinations and the need to promote their sustainable management as tourism destinations (Cusick, 2009, Hall, 2011, Cave and Brown, 2012, López, Orgaz, Marmolejo and Alector, 2016). In addition, tourism in island destinations constitutes an opportunity for economic development and benefits both the local population and its visitors (Fabinyi, 2010; Porter et al., 2015).

The main limitation of this paper is the great diversity of tourist destinations made up of islands, the complex nature of these destinations and tourism and the quantity and diversity of research carried out into them. This aspect has already been highlighted by other authors and makes it complex to determine which research should be included or excluded in this review.

Importantly, the results allow researchers and decision-makers to identify the main areas of interest in the study of island tourism and the reasons for this interest. They also indicate new areas of interest and in-depth studies. Thus, professionals have a map that shows the most relevant factors in tourism development for this type of destination and the variables that, both from a positive and a negative point of view, influence its development.

This research shows that the main areas of interest is island destination are the quality of life of the local community, stakeholder collaboration, sustainability, diversification and seasonality, marketing, consumer behavior/perception and segmentation, planning of tourism activity, information and technology, competitiveness and efficiency.

As evidenced by the amount of research carried out, there is a great deal of interest in tourism in island destinations. This interest arises from the specific characteristics and the interest of tourists themselves in this type of destination, as well as from the negative impacts and opportunities generated by island tourism. Nevertheless, the number of references obtained for tourism in island destinations (N = 949) represents only 0.2 per cent of the total number of studies referring to only “island” in the SCOPUS consultation (339,607 studies). Thus, one of the contributions of this paper has been to highlight the need to continue studying and reviewing in greater depth research on insular tourism.

This paper investigates tourism distribution channels in a small island destination with capacity constraints and contributes to understanding distribution in an emerging economy. Using the case of Fernando de Noronha in Brazil, the structures and factors underlying channel choice behaviour of tourism suppliers and intermediaries were investigated.

41 in-depth interviews were conducted with the private sector (tourism suppliers based on Fernando de Noronha and intermediaries, based on the island as well as mainland Brazil) as well as governmental organisations. A stratified purposeful sample was taken to select suppliers and data were examined based on thematic analysis.

Both direct and indirect distribution channels are used, with limited airline tickets influencing the suppliers' choice of channels in this small island and capacity-constrained destination. Many suppliers focused on relationships with destination-based ground operators. These local intermediaries are important and extremely relevant to small island destinations building an effective business network to connect the destination to geographically distant markets and intermediaries.

Limitations include the absence of air and cruise operators as interviewees.

The paper provides a comprehensive representation of the structures and analysis of tourism distribution channels in fragile small island destinations, specifically, in an emerging country context. This includes emphasising previously unexplored indirect channels of cruise ship operators and supplier's associations.

This paper aims to examine the effects of travel experience dimensions on tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.

Data were collected from 457 international tourists visiting Phuket through a convenience sampling method. The structural equation modeling approach by AMOS was used to test the effects.

In case of island destination, beach attraction is not the only factor contributing to tourists’ loyalty, but hospitality of local people also plays an essential component to retain loyal tourists.

This study examined only one construct (i.e. travel experience) affecting tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.

Tourist experience in beach attractions and local people are the key factors to retain royal tourists.

Quality of beaches and friendliness of local people are important factors to promote island tourism.

Two key factors of tourist experience were found to affect tourists’ loyalty in the case of island destination: beach attractions and local people.

This chapter presents a brief selective review of recent literature from which the operative definition “sustainability diamond” emerges. Subsequently a tourism penetration index is developed for 40 small islands with populations of less than three million. The index scores loosely arrange destinations into three development stages across the life cycle: emerging, intermediate, and high impact. Descriptive profiles of the characteristics of these three stages are presented, followed by a means difference analysis employing a dozen socioeconomic variables. The chapter concludes that these are three empirically distinct stages of development, each having major policy challenges.

Conceptually, this paper aims to consider the nexus created when the characteristics of the tourism sector workplace environment intersect with the contextual influences of the economic, social and labor market attributes of small islands.

Several studies relating to the employment and skills environment of human resource management and development in small island tourism contexts are synthesized.

Seasonality, limited skills within the local labor market, access to formal education and training are identified as issues that impact on sustainability of employment, service and product quality. Further, while sourcing and recruitment of staff, employee retention, training and development, and career progression appear to mirror those faced by larger, frequently metropolitan locations. However, small islandness imposes particular nuances upon the management of human resources, directly related to location and scale. Thus, small island environments, the global economy, technology and employee mobility (inward and outward) exacerbate structural and cultural dimensions and issues in island tourism.

This paper provides an invaluable framework for future research, both comparative and specific.

Management responses should be both local and global in focus, acknowledging the particularities of small islands, generic tourism sector influences and the effects of global mobility on the workforce and on management.

This synthesis addresses the effects of global, local and location specific dynamics on human resource management and development issues and demonstrates that the challenges faced by organizations in island tourism contexts have dimensions that set them apart in both kind and extent from other tourism environments.

This paper tries to explore the possibilities of developing sustainable, community-based tourism (CBT) in Boa Vista in Cape Verde, Africa. Island territories are generally considered preferential tourist destinations. However, the negative effects of tourism in these destinations should not be overlooked, among them environmental concerns and impacts on the culture of the island’s inhabitants. The development of CBT takes on special relevance, as it based on planning schemes in conjunction with the local community who share the positive effects derived from tourism.

The methodology used consisted in designing two surveys: one focusing on the supply side and another on the demand side of tourism to define and analyse the current status of this sector in Boa Vista. The survey on tourism supply was distributed among a panel of experts formed by tourism service providers located in Boa Vista. The statistical results of the responses and the discussion carried out by the panel of experts permitted the development of a SWOT matrix. The survey on demand was administered to foreign tourists in different parts of the island. A total of 202 valid surveys were obtained.

The main results of the fieldwork are twofold. On the supply side of tourism, the community is making an enormous effort to actively participate in the development of sustainable tourism, efforts which are often constrained by the geographical barriers of Boa Vista (sandy soil, poor accessibility to other islands) and the institutional and political situation of the island. As regards the demand side of tourism, the vast majority of tourists stay at the island’s all-inclusive resorts, whereas few tourists require the services provided by the community, mainly because they are unaware that such services exist.

Certain island destinations are more appropriate for tourists wishing to flee mass tourism enclaves due to their natural environment, relative isolation and the traditional culture of their inhabitants. For this reason, it is important to develop a CBT model for these destinations in which initiatives are planned in conjunction with members of the local community who participate in decision-making processes and benefit equally from the positive effects of tourism. Although several case studies have been reported in the research on CBT initiatives, few studies have been carried out on CBT in island territories. This is the main contribution in this paper.

This chapter presents a global insight of the processes used in Lanzarote of Spain, a typical mass tourism destination which has combined growth with environmental protection and political commitment to sustainability. Tourism has been the key element of the development of the Canary Islands and helped in the construction of cultural identity and current social dynamics, as well as being the main source of direct and indirect economic resources. However, a detailed analysis reveals the paradox of tourism development and a progressive increase of the economic dependency of the industry, limited by the action of the local population who has seen improvements in their standard of living due to the implementation and development of tourism.

Over the next decade the older travel market will experience a generational shift as the pre-war generation is replaced by the baby boomer generation. For destinations such as Norfolk Island that have built a substantial market segment based on older tourists this generation shift will have significant implications. While changes will be required in the type of products and experiences offered by the Island's tourism industry the increased size of the baby boomer generation offers considerable scope to increase yield. This paper examines these issues and discusses the need to recognise the importance of the baby boomer tourist as a distinct and separate tourism segment. To illustrate the possible impact of generation change the paper proposes a product gap model.

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing literature on the pertinence of TALC (tourism area life cycle) to model and analyse mature destinations, using quantitative data and alternative functional forms. With this purpose, this work analyses the recent data on tourist demand in Tenerife (Canary Islands), which is supposed to be playing the role of “refuge” with respect to other competing resorts, when the latter ones present political instability after the so-called Arab Springs, particularly the Middle East and North Africa.

To analyse the data, and to explore potential epiphenomenon, nonlinear competing regression analysis were performed (logistic, Gaussian and logarithmic), taking into account some insights from tourism life cycle theories.

Some suggestions are presented for political management of these destinations that are still working under a moratorium on tourist infrastructure.

Once the TALC is accepted – even under discussion – in the scholarly fore, certain incentives arise to identify, interpret and communicate signals of maturity. Public funds and specific policies (moratoria) can then be solicited to political instances. Further empirical research, complementary quantitative approaches, along with new data that confronts the evolution of demand in Tenerife with paulatine reactivation of competing destinations, will be strongly required to overcome the limitations of this first attempt and to properly determine the effectiveness of rejuvenation policies. Besides, additional quantitative data should be considered to explore the potential explanatory factors beyond the time series analysis into models that are more theoretical.

The results suggest that the diagnosis of maturity was at least premature in the first place, poorly based on data analysis and fast in promoting specific policies whose effectiveness is under discussion even after decades.