Book Review - Aviation and Tourism: Implications for Leisure Travel

copyright Dan Zelazo

Current interest in Boris Johnson's (and Lord Foster's) ideas for a new London airport prompted me to dig out my review of Aviation and Tourism: Implications for Leisure Travel.

Reading this densely packed compilation of studies of the relation between aviation and tourism, I pondered on the intended readership. The editors say that they '...continue to be surprised at the failure of academia, government, industry and other stakeholders to fully recognise and appreciate the close and complex relationships which exist between aviation and tourism, particularly when leisure travel is concerned.' This motivated them to get '26 distinguished experts ' to contribute.

All those stakeholders have plenty on their desks to contemplate; ranging from the third runway at Heathrow, the future economics of the airline sector, and energy prices, while the tourism industry itself is under severe pressure and all this within the scenario of the cliché of the credit crunch - help!

Trying to read this book in one go is not for the faint hearted. There is a great deal of detail and the sheer scale of the attempted reach of the book is slightly intimidating. My own review copy is annotated with pencilled remarks and has a liberal profusion of 'post it notes' for future reference. So who is the book for? It provides a useful single source for those wanting either an overall view or others needing the detail of aspects of a particular theme.

The book is well structured starting with a brief over view and followed by seven parts covering leisure travel demand, regulation, airline issues, the implications for airports, economic and environmental impacts and some destination case studies followed by a round up of conclusions, themes and future issues. Separate papers within each section look at aspects of the main theme.

So, this book is perhaps essential reading for both students and for those who have difficult decisions to make on the future strategy of the aviation and tourism sector.

Review written by Nick Booker, Attract Marketing director and originally published in the Tourism Society's quarterly Journal

Aviation and Tourism: Implications for Leisure Travel

Credit(s): Anne Graham, Andreas Papatheodorou and Peter Forsyth

Publisher's name, year of publication: Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2008

ISBN: 978-0-7546-7189-9

Number of pages: 377