ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the Caribbean islands, an area well endowed with tourism resources making it one of the world’s most important destinations. The scale of tourism development differs across the islands but the sector is significant to the economy, with a sizable impact made by cruising and all-inclusive resorts. The islands cater mainly for beach tourism and recreation rather than cultural tourism (with the exception of Cuba), and on many islands tourism has replaced agriculture as the main source of income. The English language is widespread throughout the islands, so there are few language barriers to English-speaking tourists. The USA dominates the market, particularly for winter sun tourism and cruising. An island’s success as a destination depends largely on its accessibility to air and shipping services. That being said, on many of the smaller islands tourists and cruise passengers have come to outnumber the local population and this has significant environmental and social consequences
In this chapter, the nature of tourism resources and the methods used to classify and evaluate them are discussed. A consideration of the key factors favouring the development of tourism resources, and subsequently the evolution of destinations, will lead to an appreciation of the need for tourism planning, marketing and sustainable development. At the world scale, both physical and cultural features are key factors influencing tourism development and it will be seen that specific types of recreation and tourism can be matched to the appropriate resources. Attractive coastlines, mountains and lakes – the most popular locations for recreation and tourism – are valuable tourism resources but culturally developed resources are considered by society to be of economic value as well. The world pattern of supply of tourism resources is by its nature uneven; resources are usually shared with other users and are both fragile and perishable. As countries realize the negative impacts of tourism, so planning to safeguard these resources has become vital. It will be seen that planning aims to minimize the costs of tourism and to maintain the integrity of the resource base. At the national scale, classifications of tourist attractions which include the whole resource base are useful. Evaluations of the potential of the resource base to satisfy tourist’s demands allow possible future areas for recreation and tourism to be identified. These evaluations can then be applied at the local scale to resort developments with their distinctive morphology and mix of service functions. Within this context, the cycle of resort development is considered.
