ABSTRACT
To the European mind, tropical islands are bountiful places offering travellers an escape from everyday realities and a temporary materialisation of what is imagined to be the ‘good life’. The jet aircraft has brought island paradises tantalisingly close for the relatively affluent of the world. For North Americans the Caribbean is delightfully close as are the islands of the Indian Ocean for more affluent South Africans. Despite their undoubted appeal, neither the Caribbean nor the Indian Ocean have quite the intoxicating attraction of the South Pacific. These previously most inaccessible of tropical islands now face the challenges of adapting to an influx of pleasure-oriented travellers from throughout the world, or in the case of those which have not yet established themselves as tourism destinations, to solicit such an influx.
