Global urban analysis: A survey of cities in globalisation

Tourism Management 32 (2011) 1484–1490

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Book Reviews The three secrets of green business: Unlocking competitive advantage in a low carbon economy, Gareth Kane, Earthscan, London (2010). 202 p. HB ISBN: 978-1-84407-873-8, PB ISBN: 978-1-84407-874-5 The Three Secrets of Green Business: unlocking competitive advantage in a low carbon economy is a practical and easy to follow guide for businesses wishing to green their business. The author takes a no nonsense and realistic approach to going green/greener, which is neither preachy nor overly idealistic. The writing style of the book is easy to follow and uses a minimum of jargon. Any theory or concepts which are introduced are done so in a straightforward style, supported by simple diagrams which are easy to understand. Any key concepts which are raised are summarised by quick rules of thumb – the eco-efficiency factor of 10 for example. The text is easy to read, with clear subject headings and the use of bulleted lists which make for an easy check point of actions. Indeed, the key actions within each chapter are summarised throughout with ‘Ten top tips’ sections. These are reiterated for ease of reference at the end of the book in a useful appendix section which, as well as the top tips, includes a section on sources of help. The book is framed around five chapters. Chapter 1 Setting the Scene in which the author sets out his stall and provides the basic motivations for going green. The emphasis is on providing the rationale clearly in economic terms: “Costs relating to resource used and disposal will rise; both through deliberate introduction of escalating green taxation and through the increasing scarcity of resources. These costs come straight off your bottom lime. If you have a 25 per cent profit margin, then for every £1 you spend on environmental costs, you would have to make £4 of sales just to break even. It is almost always easier to cut the cost than to increase sales” (Kane, 2010: 8). Chapter 2 identifies the Secrets of Green Business Success’. These are understanding the business case; what to do (which covers ecoefficiency and eco-system models); and how to do it. The chapter introduces the principles of small steps (about doing what you do better) and huge leaps (realigning the business on ecological lines). Small steps and huge leaps are revisited in chapters 4 and 5 respectively. Chapter 3 Preparing to Go Green is a useful chapter which, in keeping with the tone of the book, is entirely realistic. This chapter identifies some of the main barriers that a business may face in making changes to becoming greener and suggests ways in which these obstacles may be overcome. Chapter 4 returns to the idea of Small Steps, of which there are seven (pollution incident prevention, waste minimization and recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation, green procurement, green transport planning and carbon offsetting). For many businesses, I suggest that this will be the key chapter on which to focus as the author really engages the reader in the practical actions that can be taken to become a greener business. For each of the seven steps there is a general discussion to introduce some of the key principles, followed by top ten tops, both

for offices and factories. Chapter 5 returns to the concept of Huge Leaps which, almost by definition, may present a greater challenge for businesses to implement. However, it is in these the broader and more fundamental actions (altering a business model, building, supply chain, process etc) where, potentially, the more radical implications for the wider sustainability debate and the greening of the economy may occur. Despite the challenges, the author continues with his practical approach and breaks down the Huge Leaps into manageable action points. The audience for the book is assumed to be an existing traditional medium to large manufacturing business (considered as the worst case for going green). However, this book will appeal to any business in that it does not loose sight of the bottom line – that of remaining competitive. The case is made repeatedly that green businesses are still businesses first and foremost and need to be competitive. Personally, I think the case could have been made more strongly by providing some facts and figures (for example where x action for energy efficiency has been implemented y amount of savings have been made). The use of case studies may have been helpful, though I understand that this would have shifted the generic nature of the book toward specific industries or businesses which may make the publication less accessible to some audiences. In tourism terms, given that the book is aimed at a manufacturing audience, there could potentially be difficulty in transferring the principles and actions outlined. This is not necessarily the case and the book is however still useful to a tourism business audience. The general principles and concepts are transferable and the ‘small steps’ section also relevant for tourism businesses. Finally, I feel this book would be useful to students as a counterpoint to their more theoretical reading, preparing those about to become practitioners for practical action. Davina Stanford TEAM Tourism Consulting, United Kingdom E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2011.01.015

Global urban analysis: A survey of cities in globalisation, P.J. Taylor, P. Ni, B. Derudder, M. Hoyler, J. Huang, F. Witlox (Eds.). Earthscan, London (2011). ISBN: 978-1-84971-213-2 This is a formidable book if only for its 438 pages, 36 chapters (and 5 linking pieces to stop the reader getting lost between them), 38 contributors and 6 editors. It is reminiscent of a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular production with a ‘cast of thousands’. The topic is also formidable in itself. The book sets out to survey globalisation among cities not through a handful of examples or in one or two continents but in all cities throughout the world. The collection of comparable data would alone have been a gargantuan task. The

Book Reviews / Tourism Management 32 (2011) 1484–1490

book is a result of a long-term international research project. This also has its dangers as such projects draw together researchers into networks that are often fairly arbitrarily selected, which can result in patchy and even idiosyncratic coverage of continents and topics. This is absolutely not the case here. I cannot detect a continental bias or large gaps in knowledge of the world. The very scale of this production carries a real danger of incoherence, confusion and even intellectual anarchy. That this has not been allowed to happen is a major triumph in itself. A very strong clear structure has been imposed. Each chapter makes its precisely predetermined contribution to building up the structure of the book as a whole and each is ordered in the same way, with little or no deviation from the theme or indeed expression of the individuality of the authors. The leading editor, Peter Taylor, exercises a tight control, conducting the entire orchestra so that all are playing the same tune throughout, mainly by reappearing throughout the book with short pieces on ‘the story so far’. This renders the book remarkably easy to follow, despite its length and breadth but equally predictable with little to surprise the reader. This is basically a book of many lists, of league tables, arraying the world’s cities on a number of criteria. I have not counted how many but just to list the lists takes seven complete pages. The book is divided into three parts. Part A consists of the global tables and introduces the concept of ‘hinterworld’ as the hinterland of global cities. Part B examines the connectivity of cities within nine global regions and Part C describes the urban hierarchy on a country by country basis for 21 national systems. The idea of globalisation is here confined exclusively to the economic sector, using data on the location of the headquarters of major companies and advanced producer services, such as law, media, advertising, financial services and management consultancy. Cultural, social or even political globalisation, is ignored as outside the remit although the reader may assess how these attributes may be strongly impacted by the economic. The book describes the global economic performance of 525 cities, which is many more cities than are usually included in such compoarative research. However this remains only a small proportion of the world’s urban places. It could be argued that there is a propensity to overstress the significance of the multimillion primate cities at the expense of the small and medium sized regional centres; most French do not live in Paris nor Britons in London. The justification is no doubt that these megacities are increasingly the economic engines of national economies and thus engender a disproportionate quantity of the attention of politicians and academics. It is often not the wider general trends that evoke the interest of the reader but the deviant cities that occupy unexpected positions in the tables. There are clear over-performing cities, such as Amsterdam, whose population is only the size of a provincial town, Dublin, which until quite recently was a rather mundane and unpretentious regional British city, or Luxembourg, where an historical accident has left a legacy of the location of continental financial services. Similarly the reader is left to wonder at the reasons for under-performance of cities such as Turin, perhaps overshadowed by Milan, or New Orleans, whose global fame may be culturally rather than economically based. There is a long-term global shift evident in what are called the ‘finance command cities’. Although London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo still swap the top positions in the various leagues between each other, the rise of cities such as Shanghai, Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur at the expense of the ‘losers’, such as Brussels, Edinburgh or Munich is detectable as part of a wider west to east shift notable with the rise of Asian and South American cities. The fortunate timing of the publication allows it to

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record the impacts of the post 2008 financial crisis. Urban victims descending in the leagues include Reykjavik, which comes as no surprise, but also Barcelona and Seoul, for reasons that can only be conjectured. Urban survivors climbing up the leagues include San Francisco, Singapore and Abu Dhabi and again the reader is left to speculate about the reasons. The weakness, or perhaps self-imposed constraint of the book, is that it reveals diversity but rarely explains it. The word ‘analysis’ in the title is something of a misnomer. It does not set out to explain globalisation, let alone argue its merits or drawbacks, only to describe its results in urban economic statistical outcomes. As such it will prove indispensable as a reference text: as a book it is as readable, engaging and thought provoking as the telephone directory, while remaining as useful. G.J. Ashworth University of Groningen, Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected] 6 January 2011 doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2011.01.010

Essential techniques for hospitality managers – a practical approach, Cathy Burgess, Goodfellow Publishers Ltd, Oxford (September 2010). 240 pp. List Price: £26.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781906884-16-1 Subjects related to developing financial skills for hospitality students at undergraduate level usually include hospitality financial accounting, hospitality managerial accounting, revenue management, and hospitality financial management. In terms of application of financial techniques in daily hospitality operations, managerial accounting serves as the crucial bridge linking financial accounting and financial management. This book is in essence related to managerial accounting. The author claimed “the book is more of a manual” (p. vii); therefore, it is practice- and technique-oriented, rather than theory driven and is not intended to be used as a textbook. Additionally, the book is written mainly for managers working in the British business system. Some terminologies and formats of financial statements might not be immediately familiar to readers who are more used to American accounting system. This review mainly provides comments on the structure of the book. The book intends to address three main areas: improving revenues, reducing costs and caring for assets. Currently, the first two areas are mainly covered in Chapters Three–Six. Caring for assets, or internal control, is explained in Chapters Seven and Eight. With eleven chapters in this book, it is suggested that three chapters be devoted to cover each topic. Using spreadsheets Chapter Nine can be incorporated into individual chapters when and where appropriate. Chapters One and Two can be combined and the same is recommended for Chapters Ten and Eleven. After all, the key role the book plays is a technique manual for hospitality managers and hence should provide more examples of and solutions to daily operation realities than explaining known facts and/or regulations. Some of the techniques such as forecasting, revenue management and inventory ordering are not discussed in detail in the book. Instead, readers are referred to the list of “Further resources” at the end of the book. Since the book is not written for academic purpose and does not intend to be all-inclusive, it is not subject to strict reference style requirement. In that case, it might be easier