- Email: [email protected]
Another world: Bermuda and the rise of modern tourism
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
245
dents interested in the question of tourism marketing and management strategies.& Harald Pechlaner: Department of Management, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck/Tyrol, Austria. Email < [email protected] >.
REFERENCES Bieger, T. 1997 Management von Destinationen und Tourismusorganisationen (3rd ed.). Munich±Vienna: Oldenbourg. Keller, P., ed. 1998 Destination Marketing, Reports 48th Congress 1998, Vol. 40. St. Gall: Editions AIEST. Assigned 13 July 1999. Submitted 27 October 1999. Accepted 2 November 1999. PII: S0160-7383(99)00134-6
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 245±248, 2001 Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/00/$20.00
Another World: Bermuda and the Rise of Modern Tourism By Duncan MacDowall. Macmillan Caribbean (Brunel Road, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, UK) 1999, vii+244 pp (maps, photographs, bibliography, index) £25.00 Hbk. ISBN 0-333-72753-3. Paul F. Wilkinson York University, Canada Despite the growing literature on island development in general and island tourism in particular, Lowenthal's (1992:18±19) tongue-in-cheek comment on the hazards of being a researcher interested in islands is worth repeating: Students of islands have two strikes against them. One is that islands instantly connote having a good timeÐgetting away from it all on tropical shores among friendly and leisure-loving primitives. From Darwin in the Galapagos to Malinowski in Melanesia, island scholars have had trouble in being taken seriously. Referring to one study, The Times [14 March 1987] found it ``absurd to imagine worthwhile research could be carried out in an exotic island setting''. So goodbye Darwin, Wallace, Malinowski, and all the rest . . . . A second disadvantage is that islands connote smallness, hence unimportance. It is weighty continental states that shape our fates; islands are minute, peripheral, remote, unin¯uential.
246
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
Another World should convince the reader otherwise: while small in population and land area, Bermuda is and has long been intimately connected with the metropolitan world in the global tourism systemÐa system which has profound economic, social, and biophysical implications for both the island as a destination and the metropoles as origins of the tourists. It also demonstrates very clearly that the people of a small island can be in¯uential in this process, in line with Richardson's (1992:3) forceful contention that, with respect to the peoples of the Caribbean, throughout the past 500 years, those islanders have been shapers of their region and thus are actively a ``part of the global economy's overall trajectory'' (p. 3). The objective of the book is to demonstrate that the development of tourism in Bermuda was a deliberate choice made by BermudiansÐalbeit a paternalistic eliteÐwho ``consciously developed its role as the trend-setting island resort with single-mindedness. No matter what the decade the strategy has invariably been the same'' (p. 4). Realizing that the island colony had no agricultural (after a minor boom in its onions being shipped to the United States) or industrial future, Bermuda's ``wily commercial elite'' recognized the island's strengths (such as pleasant climate, natural beauty, proximity to the eastern United States) and limitations (remoteness [prior to airplanes], small size) and created a strategy aimed at ``carriage-trade tourism'' in which quality always won out over quantity in matters of tourism (pp. 4±5). This strategy was based on a blending of natural endowment (sunshine, climate, sea, beaches, etc.) and deliberate cultivation (the grooming and preservation of a cultural, social, and architectural environment) that created an invented aesthetic designed to position Bermuda as a unique destination. For example, automobiles were perceived to be contrary to the idyllic contrived countryside and were banned until 1946; even today, each household is limited by law to one and there are no car rentals available for tourists (who thus crowd the narrow roads with thousands of mopeds every day). The goal was . . . a distinctive image in the mind of its prime marketÐthe af¯uent urban belt of east coast AmericaÐas a retreat from modernity and its attendant pressures. ``You liked Bermuda the way it was'', promised one of the island's advertisements in the 1970s, ``So that's the way it is'' (p. 5). MacDowall rightly concludes that the result was that Bermuda became ``one of the world's leading examples of a `built environment''' (p. 233) and that Bermuda ``wrote the textbook on island resort tourism'' (p. 238). This strategy worked particularly well in the ``glory years'' between 1920 and 1939 and then spectacularly again from the 50s to the 80s. The book provides a fascinating story of the success of advertising and niche marketing (notably aimed at honeymooners and later golfers) during those years. That is not to say that all was well (or even pretty) in those glory years: war, depression, business failures, the threat of the ®rst cheap cruiseship packages as early as the 30s and then the tidal wave of cruising beginning in the 80s, a long-standing policy of racial discrimination in terms of both discouraging black tourists and economic and social injustice for the local black population. The latter is particularly well documented in the book, better so than in any other analysis of a destination known to the reviewer. Equally enlightening is MacDowall's analysis of how a commercial and a political elite created a process of ``meticulous social engineering'' (p. 227) in which both the physical beauty of the island and the colonists themselves were groomed to live up to the expectations of the island's tourists.
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
247
A ¯aw in the book, however, lies in the words of the subtitle: ``the rise of modern tourism''. The book admirably documents that rise with all of its ups and downs, but the subtitle does not even hint at the subsequent, if not fall, then at least rough ride. MacDowall describes the warning sounds that came in the 70s: in¯ation related to America's Vietnam-driven economy, increasing competition and the volatility of global tourism, confrontations with unions, social unrest, increased taxation, competition for employment from ``off-shore'' corporations, increased foreign ownership, lack of modernization of hotels, soaring costs of a Bermuda vacation, environmental degradation, and complaints from tourists about noise, traf®c congestion, and discourtesy. As a result, ``The old simplicity of elite-managed tourism was thus gone by the 1970s'' (p. 213). Indeed, MacDowall argues that ``Bermuda tourism probably peaked for the foreseeable future in 1987'' (p. 223): ``the glory years are clearly gone, a fact that newspaper editorials and politicians harp on almost daily'' (p. 221). While cruise tourists and their spending have both increased in recent years, the overall industry was dominated by the growing failure related to stayover tourists: hotel employment and occupancy, visitor spending in in¯ation-corrected real terms, length of stay, and tourism's share of the gross domestic product have all decreased. The current situation seems to be one of a lack of consensus about the future of Bermudian tourism. There have been political agreements that re¯ect the maintenance of the status quo (like recent decisions to ban casinos and fast-food chain restaurants), but these are relatively minor in the face of a vision for the future. MacDowall concludes that, while the island has proved to be ``another world'' for both tourists and locals alike, Bermudians will cease to occupy ``another world'' if they ``surrender or fail to ®nd a formula for accommodating change that preserves their society's uniqueness'' (p. 240). As with most books, one can ®nd minor errors and problems. For example, MacDowall refers to the 1872 memoirs of a British soldier posted in Bermuda who longed for his former posting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where, among other animals, could be found caribou (p. 13). In a footnote, MacDowall (a Canadian and a historian who should have known better) states that ``There are no caribou in Nova Scotia'' (p. 32). True, there are no wild caribou now in Nova Scotia, but there were in the 19th century. There are also omissions, including a lack of statistical data. For example, references are made to numbers of tourists worldwide and to Bermuda (such as p. 4, p. 223), but even a single table with historical data would give the reader a better picture of both growth and trends. Similarly, some data are out-dated. Why, for example, would a book printed in 1999 provide a 1991 population ®gure of 58,460 rather than a more recent one? These minor quibbles aside, the book is a ®ne example of a detailed case study that provides important lessons and analogies for other destinations. Not only would it make good reading for college or university courses on tourism, but also for private and public sector decision makers.& Paul Wilkinson: Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. Email < [email protected] >.
REFERENCES Lowenthal, D. 1992 Small Tropical Islands: A General Overview. In The Political Economy of
248
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
Small Tropical Islands: The Importance of Being Small, H. M. Hintjens and M. D. D. Newitt, eds., pp. 18±28. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Richardson, B. C. 1992 The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492±1992. New York: Cambridge University Press. Submitted 26 May 1999. Resubmitted 25 August 1999. Accepted 17 December 1999. PII: S0160-7383(00)00009-8
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 248±250, 2001 Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/00/$20.00
Festival and Special Event Management By Ian McDonnell, Johnny Allen and William O'Toole. Wiley (33 Park Road, Milton, Qld 4064, Australia) 1999, xii+300 pp (®gures, tables, references, index) $50.00 Pbk. ISBN 0-471-33934-2 Philip Feifan Xie University of Waterloo, Canada Festival and Special Event Management is described as ``the ®rst Australian textbook to provide [for] students, and anyone involved in event production'' (back cover). The book focuses on the aspects of event management in the Australian context and is amply illustrated with Australian case studies. With the Sydney Olympics marking the new millennium, the timing of the book is opportune. The book's 12 chapters are grouped into four parts. Part one introduces event creation and development; part two addresses event marketing and management, part three examines event administration; and part four details event coordination. The objective of the organization is to provide ``the reader with both a tool for greater understanding of events management and a framework for planning and implementing events'' (p. v). The three chapters in part one examine the evolution of events and the events culture in contemporary Australia. The authors suggest the ®rst ``event'' in Australia was probably a bush party to celebrate the coming ashore of women convicts in 1788. Since then, festivals and events became part of the cultural landscape connected again to people's needs and lives. The term ``special events'' has been coined to describe ``speci®c rituals, presentations, performances or celebrations that are consciously planned and created to mark special occasions or to achieve particular social, cultural or corporate goals and objectives'' (p. 10). From mega-events, such as Olympic Games and World's Fairs, to local venues, it seems at times that special events are everywhere. Two driving forces in modern Australia are multi-culturalism and a ``new age'' movement that offer fertile ground for the development of festivals and events. For example, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras evolved from a street march to protest against
245
dents interested in the question of tourism marketing and management strategies.& Harald Pechlaner: Department of Management, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck/Tyrol, Austria. Email < [email protected] >.
REFERENCES Bieger, T. 1997 Management von Destinationen und Tourismusorganisationen (3rd ed.). Munich±Vienna: Oldenbourg. Keller, P., ed. 1998 Destination Marketing, Reports 48th Congress 1998, Vol. 40. St. Gall: Editions AIEST. Assigned 13 July 1999. Submitted 27 October 1999. Accepted 2 November 1999. PII: S0160-7383(99)00134-6
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 245±248, 2001 Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/00/$20.00
Another World: Bermuda and the Rise of Modern Tourism By Duncan MacDowall. Macmillan Caribbean (Brunel Road, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, UK) 1999, vii+244 pp (maps, photographs, bibliography, index) £25.00 Hbk. ISBN 0-333-72753-3. Paul F. Wilkinson York University, Canada Despite the growing literature on island development in general and island tourism in particular, Lowenthal's (1992:18±19) tongue-in-cheek comment on the hazards of being a researcher interested in islands is worth repeating: Students of islands have two strikes against them. One is that islands instantly connote having a good timeÐgetting away from it all on tropical shores among friendly and leisure-loving primitives. From Darwin in the Galapagos to Malinowski in Melanesia, island scholars have had trouble in being taken seriously. Referring to one study, The Times [14 March 1987] found it ``absurd to imagine worthwhile research could be carried out in an exotic island setting''. So goodbye Darwin, Wallace, Malinowski, and all the rest . . . . A second disadvantage is that islands connote smallness, hence unimportance. It is weighty continental states that shape our fates; islands are minute, peripheral, remote, unin¯uential.
246
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
Another World should convince the reader otherwise: while small in population and land area, Bermuda is and has long been intimately connected with the metropolitan world in the global tourism systemÐa system which has profound economic, social, and biophysical implications for both the island as a destination and the metropoles as origins of the tourists. It also demonstrates very clearly that the people of a small island can be in¯uential in this process, in line with Richardson's (1992:3) forceful contention that, with respect to the peoples of the Caribbean, throughout the past 500 years, those islanders have been shapers of their region and thus are actively a ``part of the global economy's overall trajectory'' (p. 3). The objective of the book is to demonstrate that the development of tourism in Bermuda was a deliberate choice made by BermudiansÐalbeit a paternalistic eliteÐwho ``consciously developed its role as the trend-setting island resort with single-mindedness. No matter what the decade the strategy has invariably been the same'' (p. 4). Realizing that the island colony had no agricultural (after a minor boom in its onions being shipped to the United States) or industrial future, Bermuda's ``wily commercial elite'' recognized the island's strengths (such as pleasant climate, natural beauty, proximity to the eastern United States) and limitations (remoteness [prior to airplanes], small size) and created a strategy aimed at ``carriage-trade tourism'' in which quality always won out over quantity in matters of tourism (pp. 4±5). This strategy was based on a blending of natural endowment (sunshine, climate, sea, beaches, etc.) and deliberate cultivation (the grooming and preservation of a cultural, social, and architectural environment) that created an invented aesthetic designed to position Bermuda as a unique destination. For example, automobiles were perceived to be contrary to the idyllic contrived countryside and were banned until 1946; even today, each household is limited by law to one and there are no car rentals available for tourists (who thus crowd the narrow roads with thousands of mopeds every day). The goal was . . . a distinctive image in the mind of its prime marketÐthe af¯uent urban belt of east coast AmericaÐas a retreat from modernity and its attendant pressures. ``You liked Bermuda the way it was'', promised one of the island's advertisements in the 1970s, ``So that's the way it is'' (p. 5). MacDowall rightly concludes that the result was that Bermuda became ``one of the world's leading examples of a `built environment''' (p. 233) and that Bermuda ``wrote the textbook on island resort tourism'' (p. 238). This strategy worked particularly well in the ``glory years'' between 1920 and 1939 and then spectacularly again from the 50s to the 80s. The book provides a fascinating story of the success of advertising and niche marketing (notably aimed at honeymooners and later golfers) during those years. That is not to say that all was well (or even pretty) in those glory years: war, depression, business failures, the threat of the ®rst cheap cruiseship packages as early as the 30s and then the tidal wave of cruising beginning in the 80s, a long-standing policy of racial discrimination in terms of both discouraging black tourists and economic and social injustice for the local black population. The latter is particularly well documented in the book, better so than in any other analysis of a destination known to the reviewer. Equally enlightening is MacDowall's analysis of how a commercial and a political elite created a process of ``meticulous social engineering'' (p. 227) in which both the physical beauty of the island and the colonists themselves were groomed to live up to the expectations of the island's tourists.
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
247
A ¯aw in the book, however, lies in the words of the subtitle: ``the rise of modern tourism''. The book admirably documents that rise with all of its ups and downs, but the subtitle does not even hint at the subsequent, if not fall, then at least rough ride. MacDowall describes the warning sounds that came in the 70s: in¯ation related to America's Vietnam-driven economy, increasing competition and the volatility of global tourism, confrontations with unions, social unrest, increased taxation, competition for employment from ``off-shore'' corporations, increased foreign ownership, lack of modernization of hotels, soaring costs of a Bermuda vacation, environmental degradation, and complaints from tourists about noise, traf®c congestion, and discourtesy. As a result, ``The old simplicity of elite-managed tourism was thus gone by the 1970s'' (p. 213). Indeed, MacDowall argues that ``Bermuda tourism probably peaked for the foreseeable future in 1987'' (p. 223): ``the glory years are clearly gone, a fact that newspaper editorials and politicians harp on almost daily'' (p. 221). While cruise tourists and their spending have both increased in recent years, the overall industry was dominated by the growing failure related to stayover tourists: hotel employment and occupancy, visitor spending in in¯ation-corrected real terms, length of stay, and tourism's share of the gross domestic product have all decreased. The current situation seems to be one of a lack of consensus about the future of Bermudian tourism. There have been political agreements that re¯ect the maintenance of the status quo (like recent decisions to ban casinos and fast-food chain restaurants), but these are relatively minor in the face of a vision for the future. MacDowall concludes that, while the island has proved to be ``another world'' for both tourists and locals alike, Bermudians will cease to occupy ``another world'' if they ``surrender or fail to ®nd a formula for accommodating change that preserves their society's uniqueness'' (p. 240). As with most books, one can ®nd minor errors and problems. For example, MacDowall refers to the 1872 memoirs of a British soldier posted in Bermuda who longed for his former posting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where, among other animals, could be found caribou (p. 13). In a footnote, MacDowall (a Canadian and a historian who should have known better) states that ``There are no caribou in Nova Scotia'' (p. 32). True, there are no wild caribou now in Nova Scotia, but there were in the 19th century. There are also omissions, including a lack of statistical data. For example, references are made to numbers of tourists worldwide and to Bermuda (such as p. 4, p. 223), but even a single table with historical data would give the reader a better picture of both growth and trends. Similarly, some data are out-dated. Why, for example, would a book printed in 1999 provide a 1991 population ®gure of 58,460 rather than a more recent one? These minor quibbles aside, the book is a ®ne example of a detailed case study that provides important lessons and analogies for other destinations. Not only would it make good reading for college or university courses on tourism, but also for private and public sector decision makers.& Paul Wilkinson: Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. Email < [email protected] >.
REFERENCES Lowenthal, D. 1992 Small Tropical Islands: A General Overview. In The Political Economy of
248
PUBLICATIONS IN REVIEW
Small Tropical Islands: The Importance of Being Small, H. M. Hintjens and M. D. D. Newitt, eds., pp. 18±28. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Richardson, B. C. 1992 The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492±1992. New York: Cambridge University Press. Submitted 26 May 1999. Resubmitted 25 August 1999. Accepted 17 December 1999. PII: S0160-7383(00)00009-8
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 248±250, 2001 Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/00/$20.00
Festival and Special Event Management By Ian McDonnell, Johnny Allen and William O'Toole. Wiley (33 Park Road, Milton, Qld 4064, Australia) 1999, xii+300 pp (®gures, tables, references, index) $50.00 Pbk. ISBN 0-471-33934-2 Philip Feifan Xie University of Waterloo, Canada Festival and Special Event Management is described as ``the ®rst Australian textbook to provide [for] students, and anyone involved in event production'' (back cover). The book focuses on the aspects of event management in the Australian context and is amply illustrated with Australian case studies. With the Sydney Olympics marking the new millennium, the timing of the book is opportune. The book's 12 chapters are grouped into four parts. Part one introduces event creation and development; part two addresses event marketing and management, part three examines event administration; and part four details event coordination. The objective of the organization is to provide ``the reader with both a tool for greater understanding of events management and a framework for planning and implementing events'' (p. v). The three chapters in part one examine the evolution of events and the events culture in contemporary Australia. The authors suggest the ®rst ``event'' in Australia was probably a bush party to celebrate the coming ashore of women convicts in 1788. Since then, festivals and events became part of the cultural landscape connected again to people's needs and lives. The term ``special events'' has been coined to describe ``speci®c rituals, presentations, performances or celebrations that are consciously planned and created to mark special occasions or to achieve particular social, cultural or corporate goals and objectives'' (p. 10). From mega-events, such as Olympic Games and World's Fairs, to local venues, it seems at times that special events are everywhere. Two driving forces in modern Australia are multi-culturalism and a ``new age'' movement that offer fertile ground for the development of festivals and events. For example, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras evolved from a street march to protest against