Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The beach is an environment where hordes are prepared to tolerate overcrowding to
experience the human-nature environmental landscape—being at one with nature so that
the sun, sea and sand can be experienced in the tourist and recreationalist consciousness
and pursuit of the liminal existence.
THE GEOGRAPHER'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ANALYSIS OF
COASTAL RECREATION AND TOURISM
The coast has emerged as one of the popular, yet hidden and underplayed elements in the
geographer's application of the hallmark traits of spatial analysis, observation and
explanation. From the early context for economics, such as Hötelling's (1929) model of
ice-cream sellers on the beach to Weaver's (2000) model of resort scenarios, the coast
has assumed a significance as a context for research, but not as a veritable resource for
the legitimate analysis of tourism and recreation. This dependence on the coast as a
laboratory for the analysis of spatial concepts, interdependencies and the application of
geographical methodologies does not adequately reflect the cultural and leisure
significance of the beach and coastline in recreational and tourism activity in time and
space. To the contrary, locating a landmark study which embodies the coastline as one of
the most significant resources for recreation and tourism is notoriously difficult. The
literature is fragmented, with tourism and recreational geographers seemingly obdurate
given their reluctance to move this theme higher up the research agenda to fully
appreciate its wider significance in modern-day patterns and consumption of day trips
and holidaymaking. Despite the fact that the coast remains one of the most obvious
contexts for tourism and recreation, it is poorly understood. Research is reliant on a host
of very dated and highly disjointed studies of the coastal environment. Despite the
publication of two important studies in the 1990s (Fabbri 1990; Wong 1993b), the area
has barely moved forward in the mainstream tourism literature, with ad-hoc studies
published in non-tourism sources. Even in D.G. Pearce's (1995a) review of coastal
tourism, much of the emphasis was on spatial patterns, resort morphology, the
significance of the seafront and planning issues.
This is extremely problematic for both tourism and recreation studies and geographers.
The early interest in coastal tourism and recreation (e.g. E.W.Gilbert 1939; Patmore
1968; Lavery 1971b; Pearce and Kirk 1986) has not been accompanied by a sustained
interest and, as a result, the research published has been highly specialised (see Table 8.2)
and not been situated in a wider ecosystem/ environmental context where the
interconnections and sustainability of coastal environments can be understood in a
holistic context.
Where research has been published, it has made significant contributions to advancing
knowledge on the coastal-leisure interface, where physical processes are entwined with
human action on a dynamic and volatile resource base. What Table 8.2 shows in this
context is that the geographer has contributed to the historical analysis of resorts, in
conjunction with seminal studies by social historians such as Walton (1983), and have
formulated models to describe the process of development and change. The main
dynamics of change, combined with temporal and spatial seasonality embodied in tourist
and recreational travel to the coast, have remained an enduring theme in the geographer's
