Extreme tourism: Lessons from the World’s Cold Water Islands
Take a typical book on Island Tourism (Conlin & Baum, 1995). The cover shows ayoung couple frolicking in knee-deep, crystal-clear water, with sun-drenched sand and a beach resort under clear and cloudless blue skies in the background. Only one out of nine chapters dedicated to ‘management practi...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.599.5334 http://island.giee.ntnu.edu.tw/isisa2004/isisa8/100 3-2-b-1 godfrey baldacchino _canada_.pdf |
| Summary: | Take a typical book on Island Tourism (Conlin & Baum, 1995). The cover shows ayoung couple frolicking in knee-deep, crystal-clear water, with sun-drenched sand and a beach resort under clear and cloudless blue skies in the background. Only one out of nine chapters dedicated to ‘management practice ’ deals with a ‘cold water ’ location (Corner Brook, in Newfoundland); and out of 93 different islands or island regions listed in its index, only five can be considered, with some generosity, as ‘cold water ’ ones (Antarctica, Falklands, Newfoundland, New Zealand & Prince Edward Island). The image of tourist destinations as alluring undiscovered paradises has much to do with islands. But these images or tropes are based on one crucial premise-warm climates. So, for example, “…the natural beauty and attractive climate of many island states have enabled them to develop a relatively large tourist industry, by exploiting the advantages bestowed upon them by nature. ” (Briguglio, 1996, p. xii). Nature is not always seen as benign: indeed, nature may appear as the principal, insurmountable enemy to a tourism industry. The “mass market practice common in islands ” (McElroy & de Albuquerque, 1992) assumes that all islands are warm water islands. Not so. As one moves away from the tropical through the temperate to the frigid regions of the globe, the 'paradise myth ' as tourist package is harder, and eventually simply impossible, to justify. Or is it? And if we have been socialized into expecting islands to be malleable, erotic, exotic – as represented in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest |
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