Tourism in western Europe: A collection of case histories

Book abstract:

Tourism is a product of the environment and whilst nature or climate may provided the environmental ingredients in the past, nowadays other factors are increasingly playing a role. Improbable locations such as industrial cities and remote rural areas are becoming popular tourist destinations whilst coastal sea resorts are experiencing the reverse. This volume seeks to analyse the development of post-modern tourism by applying the well-known marketing PEST analysis to eleven case histories drawn from a variety of western European regions. This method examines the political, economic, socio-cultural and technological environments external to the tourist product, and into which the product is placed for purchase and consumption.

It follows that this work is organised into three sections that each tackle one of the key environments that make up the PEST analysis - political, economic and socio-cultural. For each section the editor, Richard Voase, provides an introduction relating the dominant theme to the case histories in the section, which are presented by contributors who have close local knowledge or working experience of the selected case history. Those employed in tourism view it as an industry whilst those engaged in tourism as 'users' see it as an activity but the activity is no longer necessarily physical and the impact of educational tourism is featured. It seems that as we get older we are determined to get wiser and will travel extensively to do so, assisted as we are by the technical developments in modern communications.

This book will interest academics, students, professional researchers and practitioners in tourism, geography and planning.

Richard Voase is a Lecturer at the University of Lincoln, England.