88
ences included, this book would certainly be worth
a place among other introductory textbooks that are
of value to new tourism students. A fourth edition
of this book should pay more attention to the world
outside North America and to developments in
tourism, such as the new consumer, the changing
scope of the industry and the role of information
and communication technology (ICT), and it would
gain a lot of value. The greatest asset of the book is
its comprehensiveness and clear lay-out and the
amount of review questions. If review questions
could be included as well as `knowledge questions'
and `insight questions', then it would gain even
more.
MAGIEL VENEMA
Netherlands Institute of Tourism and Transport Studies
THE INTERNATIONAL MARKETING OF
TRAVEL AND TOURISM Ð A STRATEGIC
APPROACH by Franois Vellas and Lionel Bcherel
(eds). Macmillan Press, London, 1999. No. of pages:
329. ISBN 0-333-71758-9 (hardcover). ISBN 0-333-
71759-7 (paperback).
Marketing is an essential tool in any business
activity (or activity that involves a relation between
two or more engaged parties). International tourism
has developed to the point of being considered the
largest industry in the world economy today and
one of the most promising for the next century.
Competition is increasingly ®erce in this global
business, and the success of tourism destinations
and support businesses (airlines, hotels, tour
operators, etc.) depends more and more on their
marketing strategies and continuous development
and innovation within marketing.
The International Marketing of Travel and TourismÐ
A Strategic Approach, presents its readers with a
diversi®ed range of contributions that appeal to
different audiences. In general, the book addresses
major issues in¯uencing and shaping international
tourism marketing today, such as globalisation,
deregulation and technological developments
(especially those applicable to the industry). The
emphasis of the book is on strategic decision and
planning to achieve organisational objectives. It also
draws from examples of strategic marketing in
various segments within the tourism industry.
The book is divided in three main parts: Part 1
presents the theoretical basis of tourism marketing.
It presents marketing from a strategic perspective,
focusing on a diversi®ed number of techniques and
Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Book Reviews
tools available to managers and professionals that
could be applied for identifying strategic alterna-
tives. This part offers basic, and commonly
addressed, observations. Chapter 1 focuses on
de®nitions and the role of international marketing
in tourism. Chapter 2 addresses issues relating to
the strategic marketing process and introduces `a
few of the techniques used in developing a strategic
plan' (p. 37). This ®rst part provides the back-
ground that the rest of the book is based on.
Tourism is an evolving global business and is
highly in¯uenced by developments in a number of
areas. Part 2 of the book looks at speci®c issues that
have been shaping and in¯uencing contemporary
tourism marketing and explores how tourism will
be marketed in the future. This part is comprised of
four chapters that address a number of those
in¯uencing factors. Chapter 3 focuses on the impact
that technological development has had on tourism
and marketing such as e-commerce and data-base
marketing. Chapter 4 addresses the pressing issue
of environmental awareness and explores and
describes green initiatives in tourism and hospital-
ity. It also examines `green trends' and `green
marketing strategies' in the tourism and hospitality
sectors. The in¯uence of human resource on
tourism marketing is the focus of Chapters 5 and
6. Chapter 5 looks at how human resources have
become a key factor in tourism marketing and
Chapter 6 concentrates on service quality and
internal marketing.
The ®nal part of the book, Part 3, explores
strategic marketing in different sectors of the
tourism industry. This part has six chapters. The
®rst ®ve chapters explore marketing strategies in
different sectors of the industry. More speci®cally,
tourism destinations (Chapter 7), hospitality sector
(Chapter 8), air transport (Chapter 9), tour operator
(Chapter 10) and travel agency sector (Chapter 11).
The emphasis of these chapters is on `marketing
strategies rather than on describing the nuts and
bolts of operational marketing' (p. 179). All chapters
start with an overview of the sector and analyse the
major factors provoking changes in that sector. This
part of the book is perhaps the most practical
because it explores and describes the strategic
responses to changes observed in each of the
sectors. The book concludes with a chapter devoted
to the future trends in the travel and tourism
industry.
Overall, the book makes for pleasant reading,
specially because it is rich in practical examples
drawn from different sectors of the tourism
industry and from many parts of the world. The
numerous examples and case vignettes are a strong
point, and help in giving the book the international
Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 87±90 (2001)
Book Reviews
perspective sought by the editors. Each chapter
offers a mixture of theoretical and practical discus-
sion. Another strength of the book is that it manages
to comprise all major sectors of the tourism industry
in one single volume. This makes the book appeal-
ing to a broad audience.
Some parts appear to be very descriptive and the
volume presents some minor proof-reading prob-
lems (e.g. p. 8, `However, it dif®culty for other
functions ¼'; p. 22, American Express turnover: is it
US$ 17.1 billion or million?). Nevertheless, the
individual chapters never lose the relationship
with the focus of the book and, in general, the
contributions are highly informative and well
structured and presented. The book de®nitely
makes a good contribution to the tourism literature
and will be appreciated by undergraduate and
postgraduate students, researchers and profes-
sionals in the ®eld. The editors have succeeded in
presenting a collection of contributions that illus-
trate how far tourism marketing has evolved (in a
short period of time) and how it is contributing to
the future of the industry. Moreover, readers
interested in the dynamics of in¯uencing factors
and responses will ®nd this book a stimulating
publication.
GUI SANTANA
CTTMar, Universidade do Vale do
ItajaõÂ - UNIVALI, Brazil
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM MANAGEMENT by
John Swarbrooke. CABI Publishing, Division of
CABI International, New York. No. of pages: 371.
ISBN 0-85199-314-1.
The topic of sustainable tourism is one of the
most interesting nowadays. Although several books
have been written, the approach of this text is both
practical and comprehensive and therefore most
welcome.
The teaching methodological approach is evi-
dent, as the reader starts with the introductory Part
one, where historical background is given, tourism
sustainability is de®ned (the concept varies from
country to country and a difference is made
between `green tourist' and `ecotourism'), some
carrying capacity issues are also de®ned. The
author also shows his scepticism about the lack of
best practices in sustainable tourism standards or
indicators.
Part two analyses the three dimensions of
sustainable tourism (environment, economics and
Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
89
social), being precisely the sociocultural impact of
tourism on the host community the best contribu-
tion of the book to that dimension.
Part three is entitled `the key actors in sustainable
tourism', including the media, and again this is a
worthy, albeit too short, contribution to that topic.
Part four establishes different types of sustain-
ability for geographically different tourism pro-
ducts. The chapter dedicated to islands where the
author says `that the issue of sustainable tourism is
at its most challenging'.
Part ®ve deals with the relationship between
sustainable tourism and `functional management',
i.e. marketing, human resources, operations and
®nancial management. A good point made by the
author when considering marketing techniques as
useful tools to create more sustainable forms of
tourism. This is that destinations seeking to under-
stand customers' motivations and attitudes, will be
better placed to act on the marketing mix, which
could lead to new marketing or even `de-marketing'
techniques.
Part six establishes different types of sustain-
ability for sectorally different tourism products,
such as cultural tourism, ecotourism, thematic
parks, festivals and business tourism. However,
the text does not deal with `sun and beach' tourism,
the most popular of all types and at the same time
the most detrimental to the environment. The
author includes in part six topics such as `tourism
destination issues relating to sustainability' (deal-
ing with `resort life cycle', `attitude of local people'
and the concept of `carrying capacity'), `hospitality
sector and all-inclusive and self-contained com-
plexes', `tourism transports' and `tour operations'.
Being as the carrying capacity concept is a key part
of the sustainability topic, the reader should be
provided with a chapter dedicated to its concept
and practice. Instead, the author deals brie¯y and
repeatedly with `carrying capacity' throughout the
text. On all occasions the repeated types of carrying
capacity according to the author are: physical,
environmental, economic, social, perceptual and
infrastructional. One must congratulate the author
for his sensitiveness when adding the `perceptual'
capacity. This is a demand oriented limit in
comparison with the other ®ve supply oriented
limit. It is well described as `the number of tourists a
resort can absorb before their quality of experience
is adversely affected', although the author warns
that this a very subjective measurement of capacity.
Part seven presents the conclusions, and the
author ends with this phrase: `Perhaps the most
important, if rather contentious conclusion is that
no one type of tourism is inherently more sustain-
able, or better than any other. Managed well,
Int. J. Tourism Res. 3, 87±90 (2001)