Islands, Image and Tourism

Many islands are hugely popular tourist destinations, and islands regularly feature in tourism promotion. Such a high profile is not new, for tropical islands, especially, have figured prominently in Western culture for centuries, and have long been regarded with ambivalence. They have been variously regarded as Edens of bounteous plenty, or mystical and ominous unknowns, peopled by natives of childlike innocence and simplicity, or by savages of barely disguised ferocity and barbarism. Colonial exploration reinforced such images, and from the sixteenth century a genre of island literature emerged, in fiction and non-fiction. Works by such writers as Defoe, Ballantyne and Stevenson again reinforced these perceptions and crucially influenced the way islands and their inhabitants were perceived by children and adults. In the twentieth century, as mass international tourism developed, the feature film, the guidebook and the tourist brochure helped establish many islands as popular holiday destinations, again evoking a series of established images that seem much at variance with the multiple realities experienced by island residents.