Cruise ship passengers and all-inclusive hotel-guests are increasing exponentially as these floating and fixed properties proliferate in size and number. This is especially true for developing economies that consider sun, sand and sea tourism as a form of growth. Tightly integrated, multi-billion dollar global enterprises mix with weak local institutions populated by local officials, some corrupt, vying for more investment to create a toxic cocktail with diminished social benefits as the hangover. Within view of the shoreline and the towering monoliths of hotels and ships, post-secondary education facilities teach normative concepts of good management to students who, upon graduation, fight for a decreasing number of poorly paid jobs. Meanwhile, local government officials tout vacuous GDP figures and hospitality companies make inflated claims of employment to garner federal funding for infrastructure expansion. Many observers have made similar claims that have been easily ignored to date due to an absence of studies integrating tax revenue, private and public finance, and social outcomes. This combination illustrates not only current structures, but also how they are engendered. Rather than relying on tourist satisfaction, much investment is driven by windfall profits and tax-loss carryforwards thanks to tax loopholes and willing local officials that ignore or aid in the violation of regulations. While foreign companies condemn the corruption and cronyism at destinations, local nationals decry the exploitative foreign companies. The simple truth is that they flourish symbiotically. As such, this book necessarily addresses both actors. However, rather than being simply critical or numerical, this book provides recommendations for multinational enterprises increasingly running the risk of detection of aggressive tax planning and greenwashing. For host countries, it provides recommendations of a virtuous cycle for improved public sector accountability to restore the beneficial effects of tourism. There is also a discussion on how a value-added study of the tourism industry within a jurisdiction could detect untaxed profits that are withheld through astute transfer-pricing schemes. This is a book for tourism managers and experts, as well as policy-makers in the Caribbean and any sun, sand and sea destination that attracts floating and fixed all-inclusives.

Music and tourism, both integral to the culture and livelihood of the circum-Caribbean region, have until recently been approached from disparate disciplinary perspectives. Scholars who specialize in tourism studies typically focus on issues such as economic policy, sustainability, and political implications; music scholars are more likely to concentrate on questions of identity, authenticity, neo-colonialism, and appropriation. Although the insights generated by these paths of scholarship have long been essential to study of the region, Sun, Sea, and Sound turns its attention to the dynamics and interrelationships between tourism and music throughout the region. Editors Timothy Rommen and Daniel T. Neely bring together a group of leading scholars from the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, mobility studies, and history to develop and explore a framework - termed music touristics - that considers music in relation to the wide range of tourist experiences that have developed in the region. Over the course of eleven chapters, the authors delve into an array of issues including the ways in which countries such as Jamaica and Cuba have used music to distinguish themselves within the international tourism industry, the tourism surrounding music festivals in St. Lucia and New Orleans, the intersections between music and sex tourism in Brazil, and spirituality tourism in Cuba. An indispensable resource for the study of music and tourism in global perspective, Sun, Sea, and Sound is essential reading for scholars and students across disciplines interested in the Caribbean region.

How do we re-theorize tourism? By drawing less on the Foucauldian notion of 'tourism as gazing' and instead focusing on the social construction of meaning in the landscape, this insightful book provides an innovative and compelling new approach to tourist studies. Arguing that in any view of the landscape and in tourism generally there is a multiplicity of insider and outsider meanings, the book grounds tourism studies within the framework of social theory, and particularly in the social theoretic approaches to landscape. Bringing together specialists in tourism and landscape studies to discuss the relationships between the two, it finds that issues of identity are a common thread and are raised with regard to the social construction of landscape and its portrayal through tourism. The international studies range in scale from regional to national, personal to political, and from local residents to international tourists, highlighting the multiplicity of interpretations and meanings between these scales.

Beautyscapes explores the global phenomenon of international medical travel, focusing on patient-consumers seeking cosmetic surgery outside their home country and on those who enable them to access treatment abroad, including surgeons and facilitators. It documents the journeys of those who travel for treatment abroad, as well as the nature and power relations of the IMT industry. Empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated, Beautyscapes draws on key themes of interest to students and researchers interested in globalisation and mobility to explain the nature and growing popularity of cosmetic surgery tourism. Richly illustrated with ethnographic material and with the voices of those directly involved in cosmetic surgery tourism, Beautyscapes explores cosmetic surgery journeys from Australia and China to East-Asia and from the UK to Europe and North Africa.

Drawing on examples from a range of economies and environments, this text develops a global perspective on the management issues facing coastal resorts. The main management themes highlighted include the processes of restructuring, and attempts to develop sustainable agendas.