ARTICLE IN PRESS

doi:10.1016/j.to

Tourism Management 28 (2007) 645–647

www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Book review

Tourism and Transport: global perspectives, Stephen J.

Page. second ed.. Pearson/Prentice-Hall, Harlow (2005).

(pp. 450, £24.99 paperback), ISBN: 0-1312 49452.

The importance of Stephen Page’s core text Tourism and

transport cannot be overstated. It remains the sole textdedicated to understanding the complex yet essentialrelationships between these two separate but inter-depen-dent industries and the publication of a new edition istimely. The research literature examining this impor-tant interface is still relatively small but growing rapidly.This edition incorporates significant updating from theprevious edition (published in 1999) although Page’s firsttext, titled Transport for tourism was published byRoutledge in 1994. The text has evolved significantlyfrom that initial contribution. Measured in its crudestterms it has more than doubled in size from 202 pages(including indexes) in 1994 to its current 450 pages but it isthe depth of coverage this expansion has allowed that hasseen it develop into an authoritative volume appropriatefor use as a core text at final year undergraduate andpostgraduate level.

The book’s philosophy is set out in Chapter 2 where theauthor argues for multidisciplinary approach. He pointsout that both transport and tourism are multidisci-plinary areas of study that apply and refine theories andconcepts from other academic subjects and thus argues thatanalysis of the tourist transport system must also bemultidisciplinary. He identifies the 4 most significantsubject areas as Economics, Geography, Marketing andManagement.

Whilst this approach has its advantages it also createssome difficult dilemmas for the author. Discussion of eachof the four subject areas in Chapter 2 attempts a delicatebalance between a generic brief review of the mainprinciples governing each subject area, and the morespecific application of those subject areas to the analysisof tourist transport. I am not entirely convinced the authorachieves the correct balance. For instance the initialdiscussion of management studies and tourist transport(pp. 79–84) is very generic with no reference to or use oftransport examples until page 84 where the globaloperating environment is illustrated with an airlineexample (withdrawal from routes to Seoul). In fairnessthe author does direct the reader to more detailedreferences but this text is perhaps a little too ambitious inits attempts to briefly outline the principles governing such

urman.2006.04.008

wide ranging and broad subject areas as economics orgeography.A second dilemma is perhaps the choice of the 4 subject

areas. Chapter 2 itself acknowledges that there are othercognate areas and interestingly some of these becomequite prominent in latter chapters. Chapter 4, ‘Ana-lysing the demand for tourist travel’, begins with anextended discussion of the motivation to travel from abehavioural studies/psychological perspective and theapplication of environmental science is central to Chapter8, ‘The human and environmental impact of touristtransport: towards sustainability’. Space is of course alimitation and one cannot argue against the contri-bution of economics, geography, marketing and manage-ment to transport studies, but one might question whysome subject areas need to be summarised whereasothers can be applied in later chapters without such asummary.The text consists of 9 chapters structured into 4 sections.

1.

Understanding Tourist Transport: Concepts and Meth-ods of Analysis,

2.

The Analysis, Use and Provision of Tourist Transport, 3. Managing Tourist Transport Provision, 4. The Future.

The following sections and chapters do not exclu-sively limit themselves to one of the subject areas identifiedin Chapter 2. These were used to underpin the trans-port tourism analysis in a range of chapters, so forinstance the discussion of airline deregulation in Chapter5 includes economic analysis followed by a geogra-phical analysis exploring the spatial impacts of deregula-tion in the US and then explores supply chains which drawsto some degree both management studies and someconcepts of marketing. It does make for a complexstructure itself a reflection the nature and breadth of thesubject matter.None of the individual chapters were modal specific, a

common approach for transport texts, with the exceptionof Chapter 7 ‘Managing tourist transport infrastructure:The role of the airport’. Discussions of specific modes oftransport are split across a number of chapters. This ismost noticeable for air transport which, given its impor-tance to international tourist travel is given considerablecoverage. There are detailed sections including several casestudies on airlines in 7 of the 9 chapters. The headings and

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case studies are all included with clarity in the Con-tents and therefore the reader can navigate between thevarious sections on airlines with relative ease. Theapproach has it strengths exploring different types ofissue related to airlines in different sections of the book,so for instance a detail case study of environmentalauditing (of British Airways) is discussed in a chapterthat explores environmental issues over a number ofmodes (Chapter 8) rather than alongside other issuesrelated to airlines. However, it can also appear frag-mented as issues and arguments that are related to eachother are separated into different chapters. Perhaps,more unavoidably, modal issues do not get discussedin what would seem the most logical chronological order.For instance, it would have been useful to have somebackground of the airline regulatory environment onpage 42 where there is a case study exploring the pricingof air transport in a section related to economics. Inparticular, the case study refers to global anomalies andcompares fares in Europe to fares in North America andfares between continents (Europe—Africa compared toEurope—Asia/Pacific). However, detailed review of free-doms of the air and the impact of regulatory andderegulatory environments on supply and pricing arecovered in Chapter 5 (p. 206), ‘Analysing supply issues intourist transport’.

Many tourism students will find this a useful volumethat they dip in and out of, rather than reading fromcover to cover and to that end there is scope to make thebook more user friendly, particularly by tightening theuse of chapter titles and also headings within chapters.For example Chapter 4, ‘Analysing the demand for touristtravel’ includes a case study of road safety in Scotland.The case study itself is interesting and is used to illustrate anumber of points including whether tourists are morelikely or less likely to be involved in road traffic accidentsthan locals and whether they are more susceptible tocertain types of accident. It explores data sources ontransport, accidents and tourism (visitor numbers) andexplores whether these can be combined and used tocomplement each other. The previous section had beenevaluating data sources on international tourist travel andto that extent extended discussion on the use of andcompleteness of data sources was interesting. However, thecase study is not an analysis of tourism demand, the topicindicated by the chapter title. Perhaps the chapter titlemight reflect the extended content of evaluating and usingtourism statistics.

Similarly headings within chapters can mislead.One example is on page 120 where the heading ‘Towardsa common transport policy for the European Union; thecase of rail travel’ is immediately followed by a discussionof the movement towards a common aviation policy inEurope prior to the discussion of a common rail policy.Whilst it may seem pedantic a shorter heading ‘Towards acommon transport policy for the European Union’ with asubheading of ‘Aviation’ followed by a later subheading

‘Rail’ would make the volume that little bit more userfriendly.The book has considerable strengths. The further read-

ing at the end of each chapter is well directed andthe bibliography is a comprehensive and up to date, avaluable resource in its own right Whilst the referencesinclude important recent contributions, Page is notafraid to trace the historical development of the subjectmatter and cite where appropriate important olderreferences. The statistical data for many tables is currentfor a textbook (often 2003–2004). The direction toappropriate websites at the end of each chapter isparticularly useful.The breadth of coverage is remarkable in several

different ways:

�

the range of subject approaches (already discussed), � the wide ranging discussion of all modes of transport

making excellent use of the numerous case studies onairlines, coach tourism, car, rail, cycling,

� case studies exploring the various roles of transport

beyond the dominant role of linking tourist generatingareas to tourist destinations, to tourism transportrequirements within the destination areas and the roleof transport as a tourism activity it its own right,

� wide geographical coverage in the selection of case

studies (UK, North America, Asia–Pacific, China,Malta).

One area I would like to see developed are the chaptersanalysing the supply and demand for tourist transport(Chapter 4/5/6). The useful and detailed underpinning intransport economics in Chapter 2, explores some veryimportant concepts and gives a clear explanation of yieldmanagement, and the use discriminatory pricing bytransport operators. Whilst Chapter 4 includes a usefulalternative behavioural approach, much of the chapterfocuses on data sources for International Tourist travel.The chapter reviews the statistical sources for variousmodes evaluating their accuracy, comprehensiveness andvalue as well as a section on tourist arrivals for variouscountries. It further assists the reader in locating thesources either in print or electronic format and identifiessome key aggregate global tourism flows such as thosefrom North Europe (Germany UK) to Spain (Fig. 4.4).Whilst this data is valuable, I did feel that the chaptermight have extended the application of economic analysisby focusing on the problems of uneven demand (the peakand off peak) which transport as a derived demand haslimited power to control and, as a perishable productwhich cannot be stored, difficulty in meeting. Pricing policycan be used as a tool to try and influence patterns ofdemand as well as the total aggregate demand. Further-more, the problems of meeting uneven demand could bedeveloped in Chapters 5 and 6, exploring the techniquessome transport operators have tried to meet peak demand

ARTICLE IN PRESSBook review / Tourism Management 28 (2007) 645–647 647

without incurring high fixed costs for assets which are notheavily utilised in the off peak.

For those teaching specialist transport units on a tourismdegree this volume is an essential resource. I hope,however, that it finds its way onto reading lists in a widerrange of tourism units and modules that deal with suchissues as tourism planning, tourism marketing andsustainability to improve the level of understandingtourism graduates have of the knock on effects of decisions

made by tourism managers on the transport industry. Irecommend it strongly.

Derek RobbinsSchool of Services Management, Bournemouth University,

Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset. BH12 5BB,

UK

E-mail address: drobbins@bournemouth.ac.uk.