UWI lecturer co-edits new book on Island Tourism Sustainability and Resiliency

The UWI Regional Headquarters, Jamaica W.I. Wednesday, 23 March 2022. — Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management at the Mona School of Business and Management, The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Dr.  Michelle McLeod is the first editor of a new publication on Tourism, Resilience and Sustainability. The book, titled: ‘Island Tourism Sustainability and Resiliency’ is published by Routledge Taylor and Francis Group and will be available next month. 

It explores the sustainability and resiliency of island tourism within the context of life cycles, system decline and resilience, drawing from multiple examples across the world. It also contains research that contextualises challenges to tourism development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS); addresses key matters to ongoing sustainability and resilience and provides a road map to innovate for transformation within the sector, to build resilience and sustainability.

A subject matter expert on The UWI COVID-19 Task Force in Tourism, Dr. McLeod’s experience in the tourism industry spans over thirty years as a tourism professional and academic. Her research focus is on tourism in islands. 

Commenting in the publication Dr. McLeod noted: “The book’s significance rests in the quality of the research studies included and a perspective about island tourism as a field of study in its own right. Islands are natural tourism destinations and therefore island tourism as a field has to be properly researched and that research effectively disseminated. The book will provide insights to policymakers, planners and managers of island tourism destinations like never before”.

As island tourism destinations continue on a path of tourism recovery post-pandemic, Dr. McLeod points to the fact that many lessons could be learned, and that the book reveals strategies and practices to assist island destinations in a recovery process. Islands whose economies depend heavily on tourism have been among the hardest hit by the challenging economic circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic; regaining solid performance in the tourism sector has to be supported by sound research and analysis—that this book provides.

The other co-editors are Professor and Consultant Dr. Rachel Dodds, Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada and Professor Richard Butler, Emeritus Professor in Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.

The chapters in the book were first published in the journal “Tourism Geographies”.