ABSTRACT
Although a large volume of research has been published on the characteristics of tourism on islands, much of this relates to the structure of the industry, social, economic and environmental impacts, and land use and visitor patterns (Pearce 1987). The literature on political aspects is by comparison fairly slight (Butler 1993; Chapter 5). Both Bastin (1984) and English (1986) have commented upon the implications for the industry caused by political instability in the early 1970s and the way dependency on foreign companies and markets exacerbated existing political sensitivities. Surprisingly, military coups d’état, warfare and ethnic strife, while having had the most dramatic impact upon tourist arrivals, have received the least attention from academic researchers. Lea (1988) has dealt with the downturn of tourism in Fiji following the coups in 1987. The negative impact on Malta’s tourist industry of the American air force bombing raid on Libya in 1986 attracted considerable attention from Maltese economic planners but, as Lockhart and Ashton (1991) have pointed out, this was just one of many factors influencing tourist arrivals at the time. Other countries which once had flourishing holiday industries such as the Lebanon and Yugoslavia have seen these virtually disappear as a result of prolonged hostilities yet have received scant commentary in the geographical literature.
