Benefits and Costs of Smallness and Peripheral Location in Tourism: Saint-Pierre Et Miquelon (France)

Abstract

This paper examines the costs and benefits of smallness, islandness, and peripheral location within the context of tourism. These characteristics of place enhance the attractiveness of some destinations as people seek to experience foreignness, remoteness, and unique cultures and lifestyles. However, the same characteristics can create problems for insular destinations. For example, territorial smallness and lack of resources necessarily limit the types and extent of tourism development that can occur. These concepts are applied to the case of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Canada, and the efforts being made by government officials and local business people to mitigate the costs and enhance the benefits of isolation, islandness and smallness are examined.