Abstract

This book explores the various aspects of coffee culture around the globe, relating the rich history of this beverage and the surroundings where it is produced and consumed to coffee destination development and to the visitor experience. Coffee and tourism venues explored range from the café districts of Australia, Canada, Germany and New Zealand to the traditional and touristic coffee houses of Malaysia and Cyprus to coffee-producing destinations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. This is a must-read for those interested in understanding coffee in relation to hospitality and tourism. Readers should gain a new appreciation of the potential for coffee-related tourism to contribute to both destination development and pro-poor tourism objectives.

An intriguing perspective on the social and cultural dimensions of an experience we all take for granted. Through a series of international case studies the authors have illustrated a series of linkages between tourism and the world of coffee - including the relationships of coffee to hospitality, cafe environments as social places, coffee production and tourism destination development and coffee tourism as an agent of cultural change.

Many useful insights, connections and research ideas percolate through the pages of this frothy concoction. The book is reasonably well balanced, well researched and referenced, quite well illustrated, and clearly excellently edited. While not coffee table size, this volume deserves a place in libraries and places where readers may socialize and reflect while their beverages cool. Cool?

Lee Jolliffe, editor of Tea and Tourism: Tourists, Traditions and Transformations (Channel View Publications, 2007) is a tourism academic at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. For this volume, investigating coffee-related destinations and tourism experiences around the world Jolliffe is joined by a cadre of researchers, resulting in an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural examination of how tourism related to coffee can have economic and social objectives, contributing to the development of destinations and the experiences of tourists, while in coffee-producing situations having the potential to improve the livelihoods of coffee farmers and their communities.

The volume offers an eclectic collection of essays, with some fascinating case studies.

In the end, reading the book was generally fascinating and a few chapters (12 and 13 in particular) would be excellent reading for any jurisdiction or group that wants to establish a tourism venue to complement a coffee-growing operation, comparable to the development of wine tourism...A reader of this book will likely come away with some solid history and sociology lessons and, depending on his/her interests, some useful and potentially thought provoking ideas about coffee consumption, coffee production, fair trade, and the potential for all aspects of coffee to bolster existing tourism products both in developed and developing countries. Those responsible for tourism development should read this book.