Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Introduction
Aims, Objectives and Outline
Structure of the Topic
themes in the relationships between tourism
and EU enlargement, thereby setting a frame-
work for the country-specific chapters that fol-
low in the next four parts. These examine each
of the new member states as well as the next
accession applicants, in terms of their current
patterns and trends of tourism development,
and the impacts that EU accession brings to
them. Integrated with these analyses, each
country chapter is framed within a particular
theme that characterizes that country's tourism
development processes.
Within this framework, the second and third
parts of the topic examine respectively those new
EU entrants from Central and Eastern Europe that
were outside of (East Central Europe), or within
(the Baltics) the former Soviet Union. All country
chapters comprising these parts are authored or
co-authored by researchers from the specific
countries concerned. Both parts are prefaced by a
regional perspective chapter. These two chapters
have been written by invited researchers from an
adjacent pre-existing EU member that has strong
historic ties with the region (Austria and Finland
respectively). East Central Europe and the Baltics
are two groups of countries that, both between
and within their regional groupings, offer the
experience of different trajectories and tourism
development processes.
Part IV examines the new Mediterranean
entrants and is again prefaced by an overview
chapter setting their context. Malta and Cyprus
The enlargement of the European Union (EU) in
May 2004, incorporating eight former commu-
nist states of Central and Eastern Europe and
two major Mediterranean island states, has pro-
found implications for structural and geograph-
ical patterns of European tourism development
(Fig. 1.1). Both the presence of a new diversity of
societies and environments within the European
'club', and the challenge of a significantly
enlarged Union, require detailed examination
and analysis from a tourism perspective.
This volume offers an informed and wide-
ranging contribution to help meet that require-
ment. It draws on the expertise and experience of
the ATLAS organization, especially that of
researchers from the countries in question and
those from further afield to provide a broader
contextual perspective. This collection aims to
explore beneath the rhetoric of EU politicians and
tourism industry representatives about enlarge-
ment and its relationship with tourism. For exam-
ple, the World Tourism Organization (WTO,
2004) predicted that expansion would foster the
conditions for a 'more complete and coherent'
European tourism industry, which should be
recognized in the future European Constitution.
The topic is divided into six parts. The first
part of five chapters, written by the editors and
invited researchers, establishes a number of key
