Abstract

The vast majority of existing academic research of coastal tourism resort management has been undertaken in northern and southern Europe at the expense of a wider global consideration. This book aims to address this deficit and develop a global perspective on the management issues facing coastal resorts. By drawing on examples, it incorporates a detailed analysis of a range of economic, socio-cultural, political and environmental issues which are being experienced, to differing extents, by coastal tourism resorts which are at different life-cycle stages of development. The major management themes highlighted include the processes of restructuring, attempts to develop sustainable agendas and environmental issues of developing resorts in sensitive areas. Written by key experts, this book provides a critical assessment of the key management issues facing coastal tourism resorts globally. In doing so, it represents more than a mere amalgamation of existing literature as it aims to advance conceptual understanding of resort evolution and change.

Sheela Agarwal is current Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management at the University of Plymouth. She is a leading expert on coastal resorts and has published widely on resorts and, more especially, on the problems facing English seaside resorts, including social exclusion, and on resort restructuring.

Gareth Shaw is currently Professor of Retail and Tourism Management at the University of Exeter. He has published a number of key texts in tourism including; Critical Issues in Tourism (Blackwells 2002) and Tourism and Tourism Spaces (Sage 2004).

A timely critique from established, acknowledged experts, this text draws together (in a cogent, accessible and rewardingly worthwhile manner) a carefully selected range of contemporary empirical material. With its international perspectives and theoretical dimension, sensibly, the text locates the coastal resort in the global context and, as such, makes a welcomed and valued contribution to our understanding of the phenomenon.

One might have thought that there was little new to be written about a topic as old as coastal resort management, but this volume succeeds admirably in adding some challenging and informative material to the existing body of literature. It ranges widely in settings examined and provides invaluable analysis rather than description which has tended to be the pattern in the past. This book has a great deal to recommend it, not only the wide range of examples covered but perhaps even more the analytical approach, along with the fact that the chapters are well integrated by means of good introductory and concluding essays placing them in context. A very valuable addition to the coastal resort management literature, covering a good number of well integrated examples from varied settings, bringing a contemporary outlook and approach to the material.