Putting principles into practices : sustainable tourism in small island states

Abstract

Travel and tourism is the world's largest economic sector, generating a higher income than any other economic activity. Tourism in small island states (SIS) represents one of their main sources of hard currency worldwide. In the islands of the Caribbean sea, Africa and the Asia-Pacific rim, tourism is an important source of income and its role to various nations' economic performance is even stronger than agriculture. Although there are no specific statistics, data currently available on flow of tourists to individual countries show that the number of tourists travelling to certain SIS is on the increase. Partially as a result of the easy access to islands seen from the 1980s onwards and partially as a result of the fact that North American and European tourists are increasingly willing to escape from Europe's crowded islands, which have become densely populated tourist resorts (especially in the summer months), intensive visitation to Caribbean, African and Asia-Pacific islands is a trend of the 1990s.