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Hugill, Peter 1975 Social Conduct on The Golden Mile. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 65(2):214-228. Jakle, John 1985 The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-Century North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lewis, Peirce 1979 Axioms for Reading the Landscape. In The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, Donald Meinig, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Meinig, Donald 1979 Introduction. In The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, Donald Meinig, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Stokes, H.G. 1947 The English Seaside, London: Sylvan Press. Review assigned 5 January 1987 Submitted 9 February 1987 Accepted 2 March 1987
L i n e r s to t h e S u n By John Maxtone-Graham. Macmillan Publishing Company (866 Third Ave. New York, NY, 10022 USA) ISBN 0-02-545010-7, 1985, xv+495 pp. (photographs, references, index), $29.95 (cloth).
George M. Foster University of California at Berkeley, USA John Maxtone-Graham's critically-acclaimed The Only Way to Cross (Macmillan, 1972) was an evocative portrayal of life on the great Atlantic express liners during the first two-thirds of this century. It was history, an account of a past that travelers can never again know. In contrast, the present book, while not neglecting the past, emphasizes contemporary and future recreational cruising, a tourism enterprise that grows in importance year by year, is already experienced by far more people than ever enjoyed the luxury of First Class transatlantic travel, and is open to all who have even modest discretionary income. Both books follow the same format: they display the author's formidable technical knowledge of ship construction and operation and both represent personal accounts, which reflect fascination with ~the dynamics of even the most mundane shipboard trivia" (p. xii). In Liner8 to the Sun readers looking for statistical information on the cruising industry wil be disappointed. Although we learn that an estimated one million dollars was left in Hong Kong by passengers and crew members on the Rotterdam's 1982 world cruise stop (p. 382), data like this are the exception. Nor is the book a guide to the several cruise lines and their ships. The charm of Liners to the Sun lies in the rich imagery it conjures up of a form of travel quite different from its historical antecedents--steamship voyages to reach specific destinations--and quite different from any other type of contemporary vacation. Liners to the Sun begins with "Newbuilding," a detailed account of contemporary cruise-ship construction, and how such "purpose-built" ships differ in design from their ancestors. This is followed by "Class Distinctions," again a comparative account, both past and present, of how different social classes when thrown together (on one-class ships) sort themselves out. History stands out most clearly in "Cruises Past," vignettes based on personal memories and memoirs of passengers on an 1895 cruise to the Holy Land, a 1913 cruise form New York to the
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almost-finished Panama Canal, one of the first "Around-the-World" cruises (four separate ships made this trip in 1922), and one of the few cruises of the great Normandie, a New York to Rio dash in 1938. These cruises, and others of the same periods, differed from later cruises in that most of the ships were temporarily pulled from their regular runs; they had none of the amenities that draw cruising passengers today: lido decks, air conditioning, cabarets, closed circuit television, and the like. Later chapters deal (sometimes with detail excessive even for an aficionado reviewer) with modifications carried out to convert huge liners like the Queen Elizabeth ~, the France (now the Norway) and the Rotterdam from multi-class to one-class service. Entertainment, the role of the cruise director, food and drink, cabin characteristics, all are dealt with and, not least interesting, the problems and even dangers occasioned by power failures and fire necessitating abandoning ship. The book closes with "Cruises to Come", an account of ships in the planning stage, including the monster code-named Phoeniz, four times larger than the largest present ship, to carry 5,000 passengers housed in four eight-story "ziggurats" rising above the promenade deck, itself dotted with pools and palm trees! Here, says the author, "the island [destination], in fact, is already out on the deck," and such a ~'floating universe' and all the galaxies it contains may preclude the necessity for ports of call at all." (p. 458). Radical as the Phoeniz sounds, it is but the most recent development in an evolutionary process that has dramatically changed liner design and construction. Atlantic greyhounds might be described as long, lean, and graceful. They were built for speed, the fastest in excess of 30 knots, achieved with vast boiler and engine rooms amidship, with funnels towering above them. They were designed, most of them, for a cold, not a hot climate, so heating rather than ventilation was the main climatic consideration. Pools were in the bowels of the ship, and broad promenade decks, open to the air, encircled public rooms, permitting vigorous passengers (in First Class) to ~do laps," four or five circuits to the mile on the biggest ships, and more sedentary passengers to sit in their deck chairs, wrapped in steamer rugs, served eleven o'clock bullion by solicitous deck stewards. Entertainment took the form of shuffleboard, deck quoits, trap-shooting, and wooden horse racing. Apart from a few card games, gambling was limited to wagering on the ship's pool, the distance it would cover from noon to noon. Today's cruise ships are built largely for tropical climates and this fact, plus the economics of ship operation and the interests of passengers has produced significantly different vessels. Speed is no longer a first consideration; 18 knots is acceptable for most cruising. This necessitates but a fraction of the power needed for a 30-knot boat, so that engines, all now compact diesels, fit comfortably into the stern of the hull with the funnel--largely a condescenion to passenger expectations--rising well aft of its traditional position. Since freight is no longer carried, vertical hatches and deck cranes are not necessary, and superstructures can be pushed forward, aft, and upward to the limits of stability. To save on construction costs sterns are chopped off square; as Maxtone-Graham notes, "Increasingly, modern hulls contain fewer and fewer curves" (p. 43). Modular staterooms, all identical, save costs in a slab-sided ship, but maritime grace is lost, as a cursory comparison of Holland America Line's 1938 Nieuw Amsterdam with her 1983 namesake reveals. Broad beams for spacious interiors make possible shallow drafts, desirable for many of the waters where ships cruise today, but at the cost of stability in rough weather, fortunately not the rule in tropical waters. "Doing laps" is unattractive in hot, humid climates so exposed promenade decks have disappeared, and public rooms have been extended to the sides of the ship. Lido decks, top and stern, are the passengers' only exposure to the elements, and pools have been removed from bilges to upper decks. The simple entertainments of earlier years have been replaced by cabarets, Broadway night club acts and entertainers, casinos, slot machines, movie theatres, and the like.
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Function determines form, and the modern ships do their job well, but aesthetics have largely disappeared in the transformation of transatlantic liner into tropical cruiseship. Maxtone-Graham's descriptions of cruises, past and present, and life on board, contrast the interests and habits of "Newpassengers" with "Old Guard" passengers, the former the clients of the mass cruise market and the latter the social and economic elite, usually older, who have time and money to take cruises of 1-3 months, often several times a year, on the most elegant and spacious ships. One of the most interesting chapters deals with the evolution of shipboard class distlnctions over the past half century. In the earlier period, large ships usually carried three classes. ~'At that moment in transatlantic history, First, Second, and Steerage afloat reflected precisely the prevailing upper-, middle- and workingclass structure ashore" (p. 54). In contrast, cruise-ships without exceeption are one-class; all passengers "have the run of the ship," as the brochures say, and social distinctions are marked only by the location (hence price) of staterooms and, on the largest ships, the dining room where meals are taken. Nevertheless, even on the same ship, the perceptive observer is aware of class differences, for "The species separate according to natural passenger selections, establishing and sustaining a self-willed class system--Tourist aft, First amidship" (p. 94), the younger Newpassengers patronizing the poolside barbeque lunch on the lido deck, the Old Guard gathering in more quiet surroundings, shaded or indoors. Even more striking is class selection according to ship, for there are vessels for First Class (Old Guard) and vessels for Tourist Class (Newpasssengers and the young) tourists. "Though clearly defined First and Tourist Class passengers continue to sail, they are no longer accommodated in the same hull" (p. 96). The author makes this point by comparing two similar ships he inspected, docked side by side in Barbados. '~From afar, the blue and white hulls . . . s e e m interchangeable; life on board was not. The Royal Viking Star was as undeniably upscale as the Nordic Prince was accommodating humble clients. The contrast marked every facet of life on board, from the dining room walls to the color of the stairs' carpet to the staff's manners to the noise level. Perhaps most obvious was the difference in cabin size. Since RCCL [Royal Caribbean Cruise Line] ships carry twice the number of passengers as those of the Royal Viking Line, normal cabins tend to be about half the size" (p. 96) According to the author, "Old Guard passengers are indistinguishable from their First Class contemporaries of the species Peregrinator transatlanticus inveleratus" (p. 97), but Newpassengers are most cruise line's lifeblood: younger (hence repeaters), more enthusiastic and, above all, far more numerous. Expectations of today's cruise passengers differ greatly from those of transatlantic passengers of half a century ago, and they have changed staffing patterns, the nature of public rooms, and their use. At the earlier time, passengers largely amused themselves: a good book, a personal deck chair labeled with one's name, and a few of the activities previously mentioned, marked the day. In contrast, what distinguishes contemporary cruising is "a consuming need to be entertained" (p. 377). Hence, "Lounges have been transformed into music halls, festooned with speakers, cables, consoles, spotlights... Some Newpassenger lounges are no longer furnished with social chair groupings around tables; instead, they are fixedrow auditoria with terraced seating for better sightlines... These rooms are not ship's lounges in the old sense, they are performance halls; once nightly back-to-back shows are over, they are unusable, with all the charm of deserted cinemas" (p. 378). Who are the staff members who coordinate the use of these facilities? In an earlier period it was the chief purser to whom passengers turned with enquiries, requests and complaints. The purser's role continues, and behind the scenes dora-
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inates. "But centerstage and relentlessly limelit is a group of players...seldom out of sight of their restless passenger audience. These are the cruise directors and their staffs, faced with the task of keeping the pump of passenger enthusiasm in continuous prime" (pp. 282-283). By way of conclusion, in view of the size and importance of the cruising industry, it is remarkable how little serious attention has been paid to it by students of tourism. Most information about it is found in company brochures, Sunday newspaper travel sections, monthly magazines designed to whet the appetite of potential passengers, and a variety of ~cruise guides" detailing the specifics of ships and itineraries. Liners to the Sun is the exception to this mass of predigested publicity. The author obviously loves ships, but his concern is not to promote travel; it is to describe and analyze ships, their design and construction, their use in catering to the cruise trade, and the shipboard styles of life of those who travel on them. The book is highly literate, and lavishly illustrated. It is also genuinely scholarly, well-researched, and well-documented with a relevant bibliography. Maxtone-Graham might be called a "Big Ship" man (and obviously Old Guard as well), primarily concerned with the shipboard aspects of cruising, whether Newpassenger on the Love Boat or Old Guard on the Queen Elizabeth 2. He is little interested in ports and shore excursions, and he totally ignores a small but growing segment of the industry, ~adventure cruising," the small 75- to 150-passenger ships that poke about odd corners of the world with a very different type of passenger, whose interests lie in exotic places and peoples, not night club acts and casinos. Readers who love ships, or who are interested in American lifestyles, will find this a rewarding book. [] [] Review assigned 20 January 1987 Submitted 17 February 1987 Accepted 9 March 1987 Tourism:
Principles, Practices,
Philosophies
By Robert W. McIntosh and Charles R. Goeldner. John Wiley and Sons (One Wiley Dr. Somerset, NJ 08873 USA) 5th ed, ISBN 0-471-83038-0, 1986, xviii + 564 pp. (tables, charts, photos, glossary, bibliography, index), $29.95 (cloth). Charles A. Stansfleld, Jr. Glassboro State College, USA This successful, well-established text is widely known among tourism education professionals. This is the Fifth Edition of a book first published in 1972. There are sixteen chapters organized into five major parts. The organization is well-structured and logical, as exemplified by the titles of the five parts: Part One, Understanding Tourism: Its Nature, History, and Organization; Part-Two, Motivation for Travel and Choosing Travel Products; Part Three, Tourism Supply, Demand, Economics, and Development; Part Four, Essentials of Tourism Marketing and Research; and Part Five, Tourism Practices and Prospects. Among the advantages of multiple revisions of a text is the opportunity afforded the authors to ~polish" their performance; clearly, McIntosh and Goeldner have taken thoughtful advantage of their several such opportunities. The internal organization of each chapter shows a sound, though not overly rigid, structure aimed at maximizing the text's utility to both students and instructors. All chapters have a list of key concepts, a list of questions for review and discussion, and a list of selected references. Seven of the chapters have ~readings~--some of which are reprints from journals, some are written especially for this volume by other experts, and some by the text's authors. These readings provide opportunities to explore subjects in greater depth, or sample different viewpoints,