Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Melanie Smith and Derek Hall
This topic has aimed to provide an overview of
the tourism implications of accession for the
EU's most recent member states, those coun-
tries that still wish to join, and those that are
directly or indirectly affected by EU enlarge-
ment. One of the key conclusions that emerges,
not suprisingly, is that it is difficult to generalize
about the impacts of EU accession on the coun-
tries in question. Impacts are varied and more
research is required to ascertain the extent to
which accession has had a
direct
impact on
tourism development. In the case of the CEE8
in particular, EU accession has followed a
process of complex political and social transi-
tion. It is therefore sometimes difficult to sepa-
rate the impacts of this 'new' process from the
ongoing implications of the 'old'. Indeed, a
central issue that applies to most tourism impact
studies is the degree to which the consequences
of tourism development processes can be distin-
guished from those of wider change agents of
development, restructuring, modernization and
globalization.
The diversity of the countries included in
this topic manifests itself in their political struc-
tures, their policy frameworks, the priority that
tourism is accorded, their economic situation,
and their social and cultural differences. The
rationale for including a country-by-country
analysis was to demonstrate this diversity while
highlighting key factors that are pertinent to all
EU members, newly acceded and otherwise.
The overview chapters and section introduc-
tions served as a means of highlighting some of
the geographical, historical, political and social
similarities between certain groups of countries
(i.e. The Baltic States, East Central Europe, the
Mediterranean islands of Malta and Cyprus,
and those countries seeking accession). Many
countries clearly feel a certain affinity to each
other, and this may be expressed in terms of
economic and political binding agents, such
as that of the Visegrad Group (see Chapters 1
and 8). They are often bound by common lega-
cies of occupation, colonization or oppression,
and subsequent liberation, as well as by culture
and environment. Indeed, the EU will have ful-
filled one of its original objectives if the common
affinities and historical antagonisms shared
by member countries are expressed no more
belligerently than on the front-stage provided
by the annual Eurovision Song Contest, which
has become notable for apparent mutual voting
allegiances among neighbouring countries and
historic allies (BBC News Online, 2004).
While the topic has not claimed to be
comprehensive in its coverage, it has aimed to
provide the reader with an introductory under-
standing of some of the most significant issues
relating to tourism in the new Europe. These
include the policies and structures of the new
EU (Anastasiadou, Chapter 2); the social and
cultural complexities of unification and expan-
sion (Smith and Hall, Chapter 3); the global
