Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. An investigation on the growth performance of small tourism countries -- 2. Forecasting international tourism demand and uncertainty for Barbados, Cyprus and Fiji -- 3. Land, environmental externalities and tourism development -- 4. Tourism, increasing returns and welfare -- 5. How to develop an accounting framework for ecologically sustainable tourism -- 6. The effect of climate change and extreme weather events on tourism -- 7. Sustainable tourism and economic instruments : international experience and the case of Hvar, Croatia -- 8. Tourism and sustainable development : lessons from recent World Bank experience -- 9. Using data envelopment analysis to evaluate environmentally conscious tourism management -- 10. A tale of two tourism paradises : Puerto Plata and Punta Cana, the determinants of room price in the Dominican Republic using a hedonic function approach -- 11. A choice experiment study to plan tourism expansion in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Although economics has increasingly become a technical subject, this accessible book aims to present important economics results and relate them explicitly to the policy debate. Using a coherent analytical framework, this unique approach offers prescriptions for moving tourism, and economic development more generally, closer to a sustainable ideal. The authors begin by studying the macroeconomic effect of tourism in terms of growth performance and sources of growth. They also examine how the tourism-growth link is affected by the role of imports in the economy, and how tourism impacts upon land use. Further chapters investigate the important issue of forecasting visitor numbers and explore the need for a comprehensive accounting framework to take account of ecologically sustainable tourism. The authors also examine the microeconomic aspects of sustainable tourism and analyse the increasing popularity of environmentally friendly holidays.