ABSTRACT
In more recent times, the development of international air transport systems combined with the emergence of an efficient and highly integrated tour-operating sector has enabled tourists to travel to ever-more-distant or exotic island destinations in ever-increasing numbers. Thus, since Vladimir Raitz’s pioneering charter flight to Corsica in 1950 (Yale 1995), not only have Mediterranean islands (such as the Balearics, Malta, Crete, Corfu, Rhodes, and Cyprus) become some of the most popular short-haul holiday destinations for Europeans – and similarly, the Caribbean islands for North Americans and Indonesia (especially Bali) and the Melanesian islands for Australians and New Zealanders – but many have also become long-haul destinations. Examples of the latter include the Caribbean islands (for Europeans), the islands of the Indian Ocean (Mauritius, the Seychelles, the Maldives), South-East Asian islands such as the Philippines, Bali/Lombok, and the islands of Thailand (Koh Samui, the Phi Phi islands – the smaller of which was the location for the movie The Beach – and Phuket),
and other, newly emerging destinations, such as Cape Verde off the Senegalese coast, and the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
