This book remains a valuable resource that is highly readable, well-illustrated and extensively referenced. As such, it continues to introduce and equip managers, students, and researchers from a range of disciplines to the phenomenon of tourism in natural areas. It continues to be very useful as a textbook for natural area tourism in the environmental and social sciences and should be recommended reading for tourism and natural area researchers, managers, and practitioners alike.
-- Pascal Scherrer, Southern Cross University, Australia * Annals of Tourism Research 44 (2014) 288-300 *
This is a critical resource for all those working in the interrelated disciplines of protected area management, sustainable tourism, geography and conservation biology. It is beautifully written in a clear and comprehensive style allowing readers to engage with all the challenges and intricacies of natural area tourism. The second edition updates and expands on the first edition, incorporating the latest outcomes from this expanding area of research and practice. All three authors are authorities in this field with both theoretical and practical experience.
* Catherine Pickering, Environment Futures, Australia *
The book sets out to argue that the foundation to managing tourism in natural areas is an understanding of the basic ecology of the area. This is a significant argument for many of the world's 160,000 or so nationally designated protected areas lay at the basis for a local tourism industry. The book takes the reader on a voyage from understanding the impacts of tourism to managing the visitors that cause them. Key reviews of management frameworks, strategies and actions are included. The text includes hundreds of references, an important feature for students interested in research. The book should be in every tourism researcher's library.
* Steve McCool, The University of Montana, USA *
Significantly revised and updated, this new edition provides an excellent resource for students, teachers, researchers and practitioners of nature-based tourism. This book is one of the few that goes beyond paying lip-service to the environmental impacts of tourism. Working from ecological first-principles, the authors provide a sound basis for considering how tourism impacts the natural environment. Importantly, the authors critically consider a range of management approaches that can be put in place to avoid or mitigate these impacts, acknowledging the human element involved in planning, management, intervention and monitoring. The book is packed full with extremely useful 'vignettes' (or case studies) from around the world (from Komodo Dragons to coral reefs!) essential in illustrating the variety of ecosystems and species that interact with tourism. A strength of the book is its accessibility - it is well written, and makes good use of images and figures to convey a huge amount of useful information - as such I am sure that it will appeal to a broad audience.
* Brent Lovelock, University of Otago, New Zealand *
The book contains numerous international case studies and is chock-full of theoretical and practical implications. It is so well written that each paragraph, section, and chapter are seamless, and the reader hears a unified voice as he/she reads. Overall, a valuable resource for libraries with an extensive collection in tourism science and planning.
* K. M Woosnam, Texas A&M University, USA in CHOICE, July 2013, Vol. 50 No. 11 *
The book certainly achieves the goals it set for itself, and constitutes a solid and authoritative text on the ecology, impacts and management of natural area tourism. It provides an excellent summary of the main issues, interspersed with compatible case studies, offers management solutions, and is based on the state-of-the-art literature. While it is complete in its breadth, it is impossible to be so in depth on any one of the issues. Therefore, the main value of this book is its excellent overview and its use as a comprehensive source both for ideas and references...The authors are to be congratulated for compiling and presenting this extensive and highly relevant material on natural area tourism. The book will serve to acquaint the next generation of undergraduate and graduate students with this topic, and should also provide managers, planners and researchers with an increased understanding of natural areas tourism.
-- Wolfgang Haider, Simon Fraser University, Canada in Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism 3-4 (2013) 47-48
