Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
interesting to note that entrepreneurial and forward-looking companies like GWR created
images and marketing strategies which saw a massive investment in tourism advertising.
This was very influential in developing new and repeat business among the domestic and
overseas markets, with carefully targeted market positioning of specific resorts to meet
the expectations, desires and perception of prospective visitors.
In each of the studies of the English seaside resort, geographers have sought to map and
analyse the changing dynamics of resort development. In these analyses, the
preconditions for resort development (see Bescancenot et al. 1978), the role of
stakeholders, developers and planners have been examined, and D.G.Pearce (1995a)
reviews many of the French geographers' contributions to coastal tourism research. In the
analysis of Spanish tourism by Barke et al. (1996), a number of useful historical
reconstructions of coastal tourism exist (e.g. Barke and Towner 1996; Walton and Smith
1996), which review the emergence of coastal areas in the era during and after the Grand
Tour. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century patterns of coastal tourism in Spain,
and the dynamics of tourist circuits, were reconstructed from historical guidebooks. The
relationship of tourist circuits, the evolution of the Spanish railway system and the
development of tourist accommodation highlighted the consumption of leisure resources,
particularly the evolution of seaside resorts. Walton and Smith (1996:57) concluded that
The importance of the quality of local government to resort success has been strongly
apparent in studies of English resorts, but its role in San Sebastian was even more
impressive'. Evaluations of coastal resources, such as the development of England and
Wales Heritage Coastline (Romeril 1984, 1988), have emerged as a resource with a
historical connotation. In other countries (e.g. the USA and Australia), historical studies
of coastal tourism and recreation (see Pigram 1977; M.Miller 1987; Jeans 1990; Pigram
and Jenkins 1999) have considered resorts, their life cycles and development in a
longitudinal context. The historical geography of specific resorts has provided a focal
point for research, where a range of factors explain why resorts developed where they
did, why they developed and the pace and scale of change. This often remains a starting
point for most analyses of the coast as an evolving resource for leisure use.
MODELS OF COASTAL RECREATION AND TOURISM
As already mentioned, model building is one of the hallmarks of the logical positivist
traditions in human geography (see Johnston 1991). In the early studies of coastal
recreation and tourism (e.g. E.W. Gilbert 1939), the major contribution to spatial
knowledge was predicated on developing models which had a universal or more general
application. By far the most extensive review of models of coastal recreation and tourism
is D.G.Pearce (1995a).
D.G.Pearce (1995a) reviewed models of resort development, acknowledging the role
of historical
