Tourism, sovereignty and supranationalism in a changing world : experiences from islands and coastal areas

Abstract

This paper examines the notion of sovereignty in an ever-changing postmodern world and its implications for tourism. New spaces have been created, old spaces have been united, and traditional barriers have been torn down. These and other manifestations of globalization are particularly poignant in island and coastal destinations. Empirical examples will be provided from Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and the Arctic to illustrate shifting notions of absolute sovereignty into supranationalist associations, cross-border cooperative relations, and in some cases, more austere extremes in asserting state sovereignty. All of these changes have salient implications for tourism from planning, marketing, and policy perspectives