The Small Island Paradox: Tourism Specialization As a Potential Solution

This book is about the search for solving the small island paradox by tracing the forces that explain growth and prosperity in small island destinations. The small island paradox is a conceptual trap: small islands cannot grow in economic terms because they are small, and they are small in economic terms because they cannot grow. The underlying premise of the paradox is that small is ugly and big is beautiful. Luckily for small islands their reality is different. Tourism specialization explains much of the forces that have shaped growth and prosperity in small islands. Their degree of tourism specialization utilizes these forces in seeking to promote growth in these small islands. Keeping the forces working that have triggered growth and prosperity has now become more complicated as a consequence of sameness, costs disease and limitations imposed by size constraints. Moving ahead requires commanding higher prices from tourists and increased collaboration to provide greater value to the tourists. However, this route challenges the mainstream economics literature. The Small Island Paradox, Tourism Specialization as a Potential Solution is the result of a long search for an approach