Resumen de Sustainable Island Tourism: An Operative Definition
This chapter presents a brief selective review of recent literature from which the operative definition “sustainability diamond” emerges. Subsequently a tourism penetration index is developed for 40 small islands with populations of less than three million. The index scores loosely arrange destinations into three development stages across the life cycle: emerging, intermediate, and high impact. Descriptive profiles of the characteristics of these three stages are presented, followed by a means difference analysis employing a dozen socioeconomic variables. The chapter concludes that these are three empirically distinct stages of development, each having major policy challenges.
