by Susan Sherk
Susan Sherk is Assistant Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. She visited the Isle of Man in July in conjunction with meetings of the North Atlantic Islands Programme.
It was a distinct pleasure in July to experience the Isle of Man as a tourism destination. The steam and electric trains, the glades, the vistas, the uncrowded nature of the walks, the folk village and the marvelous food all contributed to a memorable time. For those of us in tourism who are building our product or trying to keep up with the changes in travel patterns, the experience of the Isle of Man provides a valuable and cautionary lesson.
Here are highlights of the intinerary for participants in the October meeting of the North Atlantic Islands Programme Advisory Committee. Bjarne Lindström, Director of NordREFO, hosted the group from Tuesday, October 3 to Friday, October 6, 1995.
The following presentations were made:
The Åland Shipping Industry, by Hans Ahlström, Managing Director, Åland Shipowners' Association;
The Constitution, the History of the Autonomy and the Demilitarized Status of the Åland Islands, by Roger Jansson, MP, Speaker of Parliament and Susanne Eriksson, 2nd Secretary of Parliament
Åland's EU Position and Economic Policy, by Anders Eriksson, Minister of Industry and Trade, Government of Åland, Per Ekström, Head of Department, and Niklas Fagerlund, EU-advisor
Entrepreneurial Åland: The Creation of A Modern Service Economy, by Agneta Erlandsson, Managing Director, Åland Chamber of Commerce
Financial Services and Insurance, by Folke Husell, Managing Director, Bank of Åland Ltd. and Göran Lindholm, Director, Åland Mutual Insurance Company
Trade and Retail, by Nils Lampi, Managing Director, Wiklöf Holding Ltd.
Manufacturing, by Sven-Harry Boman, Managing Director, The Chips Group Ltd.
There was also an opportunity for the group to speak about NAIP and the week in Åland at a press conference on the final day of the session.
to Strengthen Ties to Denmark
Excerpt from Nord Revy, No. 3, July 1995. Source: Reuter News Service, March 9, 1995.
Greenland's politicians on Thursday formed a new centre left-right home rule coalition committed to strengthening relations with mother country Denmark, following last weekend's elections. “It means a cementing of our relations with Denmark, ensuring political stability,” Prime Minister Lars Emil Johansen said. Johansen's centre-left Siumut Party boosted its share of the vote by 1.2 percentage points to 38.5% in last Saturday's elections, with its former left-wing coalition partner Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) gaining one point to take 20.3%. Johansen's party had ruled the Arctic island in tandem with the IA since the last election in 1991 but the coalition foundered on differences over relations with Denmark. In the elections Siumut gained one seat to hold a total of 12 in Greenland's 31-seat home rule government in Nuuk, the capital. Siumut's new coalition partner, the main right-wing opposition party, Atassut, came second in the poll winning 29.7% of the vote, increasing its representation in the local assembly to 10 from eight seats.
Planning continues for an international conference on “Atlantic Islands, Offshore Oil and Development,” to be held in St. John's, Newfoundland, in September 1997. It will be a component of the Summit of the Sea, part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's Newfoundland landing.
The conference will provide an opportunity for participants from Newfoundland, Trinidad, the Shetlands, Orkneys, Faroes, Falklands, and other Atlantic islands, and academics, consultants, government officials, and business-people with related interests, to discuss the impacts of the offshore oil industry and their management.
The organizing committee is in the process of identifying potential speakers and would be interested in receiving suggestions, expressions of interest, and proposals. Conference themes include:
-
• Regulatory Approaches
• Fiscal Management
• Environmental Planning and Management
• Economic Benefits Planning
• Impacts on Traditional Industries
• Cultural and Social Impacts
Contact:
-
Mark Shrimpton
Community Resource Services Ltd.
P.O. Box 5936
St. John's, Newfoundland
Canada, A1C 5X4
Tel: (709) 753-8493
Fax: (709) 576-6946
by David Milne
Note: On October 30, 1995, Quebec will hold a referendum
on the question of separation, the second such vote in 15 years.
The outcome has serious implications for all provinces, including
Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Here NAIP Advisory Committee
member Dr. David Milne outlines the current political dynamic.
“We, the people of Québec, through the voice of our Assemblé
nationale , proclaim: Québec is a sovereign country. We wish
to formulate along with the people of Canada, our historic partner,
new relations that will allow us to maintain our economic ties and
to redefine our political exchanges.”
[Preamble to Referendum Bill, Quebec Legislature, September 7,
1995]
The old familiar music is back: haunting sovereignty-association melodies again try to tantalize and taunt. Once a music for the heart – a music to inflame passion – it now seems déjà vú.
With hardline nationalists elected last September under Jacques Parizeau's leadership, this was not supposed to be. This time, we were promised, the Quebec sovereignty score would be pure and uncompromising. Straight-up sovereignty: no hyphens, no hesitation. That, indeed, was the intention of Premier Parizeau as early as December, 1994; yet it wasn't long before the intervention of other separatist composers had put the theme of association back into the score.
It was Lucien Bouchard, formerly a federal Tory Cabinet Minister, now federal leader of the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa, who demanded the return of the association theme, along with Mario Dumont, formerly a provincial Liberal, the youthful leader of the “soft nationalist” Action Démocratique. With the unofficial overture to their independence campaign in late August, this new trio plays deceptively familiar tunes. On the one hand is the Québécois call to country; on the other, the perceived humiliations of Quebec in Canada. But for the careful listener, there are some startlingly new elements:
• The October 30th referendum question, if approved, would mandate the Quebec National Assembly to declare Quebec's sovereignty (unlike 1980 when the question merely asked for a mandate to negotiate sovereignty-association).
• This time sovereignty follows directly from a “Yes” vote, and association is contingent (unlike 1980, when sovereignty hinged upon the success of negotiating association ties).
• With a “Yes” majority, the Quebec National Assembly is authorized to proceed with the establishment of new state arrangements without recourse to a second referendum (unlike 1980, when Quebecers were promised a referendum to ratify the results of negotiations).
So, despite the familiar melodies, Sam's music has become hardened and insistent. Changed too is the setting, with many players completely recast:
• Take, for example, more than fifty federal Bloc Québécois representatives now working for the sovereigntist campaign in 1995 (unlike 1980, when all federal representatives were federalists, and sang from the same hymn book).
• Note that, with the North American Free Trade Agreement in place, the Canadian economic union no longer represents Quebecers' most important economic security blanket, nor does Ottawa's financial position look so strong.
• Except for Lucien Bouchard, gone is the charisma of a René Lévesque or Pierre Trudeau, and gone too is much of yesterday's idealism and electricity.
About the only consistency in the setting is the continuing ambivalence of the “soft nationalists” for whose votes the campaign is being fought, and the softer basis of the independence vote.
Hence, even with polls showing federalists and sovereigntists in a dead heat, Casablanca no longer stirs. The patrons have the economy, not romance
by Peter Meincke
Dr. Peter Meincke is Professor of Physics and Mathematics
at the University of Prince Edward Island. He administers the electronic
Small Islands Information Network (SIIN) out of UPEI.
Several new links have been added to the Small Islands Information Network World Wide Web pages since September 1, 1995. The URL for the SIIN home page is http://www.upei.ca/~siin. Please check it out.
Also updated on the SIIN is the following list of upcoming conferences, found at http://www.upei.ca/~siin/conf.htm. This site has links to more detailed information about each conference.
If you have any additional WWW links, conference announcements or reports you would like to include in the SIIN WWW pages, please e-mail them to meincke@upei.ca.
24-25 October 1995
Spanning the Pacific: Satellite Technology and Services Under
Development, Palo Alto, California [Pacific Telecommunications
Council 3rd Quarter Seminar]
26 October 1995
The Impact of Tourism on Small Islands, London, UK [A one-day
conference convened by the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute
of British Geographers.]
6-10 November 1995
Pollution Vulnerability in Island States, San Juan, Puerto
Rico [Caribbean Waste Management Conference]
25-27 November 1995
Adult Continuing Education in Small States and Islands, Malta
[Islands and Small States Institute (Foundation for International
Studies), Faculty of Education (University of Malta) and Education
for Development (Reading, UK)]
29 November-2 December 1995
Island Tourism Into the Next Millenium, Bermuda [Third Island
Tourism International Forum]
30 November- 2 December 1995
Celebrating the Right to Know, Dallas, Texas [Council on
Information for Sustainable Development 1995 International Conference
on Information for Sustainable Development]
7-9 December 1995
Contested Ground: Knowledge and Power in Pacific Islands Studies,
Honolulu, Hawai'i [Twentieth Annual University of Hawai'i Pacific
Islands Studies Conference]
11-14 December 1995
The Web Revolution, Boston, Massachusetts [Fourth International
World Wide Web Conference]
14-16 March 1996
Integrated Economic and Environmental Planning in Islands and
Small States, Malta [Islands and Small States Institute, and
Directorate of the Planning Authority, Malta]
9-13 July 1996
History, Culture and Power in the Pacific, Hilo, Hawai'i
[The 1996 Pacific History Association Conference]
in North America
From August 11, 1995 Daily News From Iceland at www site http://xanadu.centrum.is/icerev.
The national carrier Icelandair has announced that they will be adding Boston and Halifax to their scheduled destinations in North America, beginning next May.
The company plans to add one Boeing 757-200 jet to its fleet and to hire some 80 new employees.
“In mainland Europe the market for trips to Nova Scotia is similar to that for trips to Iceland, so we can utilize our knowledge of the market for that destination as well,” Sigurdur Helgason, Icelandair's president, was quoted as saying in the daily Morgunbladid.
“Boston is a very large market, there appears to be much interest in Iceland there and the opportunities for the transport of fresh fish are many in that area.”
The company expects and increase of 60,000 passengers with the advent of the new flights.
Excerpt from August 31, 1995 letter to Harry Baglole, Director of the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI, from Godfrey Baldacchino, University of Malta. The author will co-edit the second of three volumes to be published by the Institute of Island Studies arising out of “An Island Living,” the 1992 conference that indirectly launched Lessons from the Edge: The North Atlantic Islands Programme. This volume, due for publication in 1996, is entitled The Economic Self-Reliance of Small Islands in the North Atlantic Region.
Dear Harry,
… I have been privileged in being selected to co-edit (with Rob Greenwood) one of the three important volumes covering the conference proceedings. If anything, so much glib talk about globalization and its standardizing impact will make our volume an even more important contribution.
Addressing the socio-economic development trajectories of small island territories of the North Atlantic, it will consistently expose the necessity to affirm that globalization does not render all flush and even under its crushing weight but, in itself tolerates and even reinvents differences and inequalities. Islands must seriously assess their status in the new world order and go for idiosyncratic development paths, unless they would be engulfed into the contemporary global mass as faceless and placeless members.
Proclaiming and maintaining the identity of insularity becomes an even more viable option in the context of inexorable fusion. Of course, this is not a recipe for isolation and anarchic develoment – a non-option for all, but for small islands in particular, incorporated as they are in wider economic, financial and political circuits – but more a counsel for home-grown strategies which exploit local resources.
In a way, islands had been looking beyond their shores for solutions to pressing socio-economic problems; the world may yet look at islands for solutions to its own problems in the not-too-distant future …
Ever warm regards to all at IIS!
Godfrey Baldacchino
Lise Lyck and Barry Bartmann were among several North Atlantic islanders
who recently visited Siberia to participate in a NATO conference
on development issues in northern societies. Prominent among the
many Russian delegates were leading representatives of the federal
and republic governments in Russia. Western representation came
from Britain, the Nordic countries the United States and Canada.
Barry Bartmann's paper, “Footprints in the Snow: Nunavut and the Inuit Quest for Dignity,” examined issues of self-determination in what will be one of the smallest jurisdictions in the world. Lise Lyck's paper, “The Danish Home Rule Model in the Faroes and Greenland,” attracted considerable attention as Russians seek to develop new models of devolution throughout their federation. Ragnar Arnason from the University of Iceland, a familiar colleague in several Institute projects – and co-editor of The North Atlantic Fisheries being launched in October – gave a paper on “The Structure of Management in Iceland.” Jógvan Mørkøre, one of the contributors to our fisheries volume, presented a paper on unemployment in the Faroe Islands in the wake of the financial crisis. Finally Hallgir Paulsen from the Faroes gave an excellent paper on “Oil technology and Management in Newfoundland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland.”
These papers will be published in a NATO series in the Netherlands later this autumn.
The Institute of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island is pleased to announce that Volume 3 in the series“An Island Living” will be launched in St. John's on October 25, 1995, with generous assistance from colleagues on the Newfoundland Advisory Committee of the NAIP. The launch will coincide with a meeting of the Newfoundland Advisory Committee and a public engagement session on tourism with Principal Research, Tom Baum.
Edited by Ragnar Arnason and Lawrence Felt, The North Atlantic Fisheries: Successes, Failures, and Challenges looks at the fisheries of five North Atlantic islands: the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Some have been successful; some are in crisis; some have collapsed. Each has lessons that can be shared.
For more launch information, contact Dawn Payne in St. John's at (709) 722-6421. The book is available for CDN $24.95. For copies, write to The Institute of Island Studies, Department of Extension, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada C1A 4P3. Or contact Publishing Co-ordinator Laurie Brinklow: telephone (902) 566-0956, facsimile (902) 566-0756, or e-mail brinklow@upei.ca.
The Isle of Man is in many ways the most manageable of all the North Atlantic islands participating in the Lessons from the Edge programme. A fairly homogenous population of approximately 70,000 spreads around the periphery of the 30-by-16 mile island. The major villages are located on the east, west and south coasts, and a significant mountain range bisects the island from north to south. The island's northern tip consists of a flat plain and numerous small villages.
While one of the smallest in the North Atlantic Islands Programme, the Isle of Man is perhaps the most experienced in some sectors, particularly in tourism where it has had a strong showing for over a hundred years. More recently, off-shore financial services and light manufacturing are making major contributions to the economy, replacing fisheries and agriculture in importance.
Isle of Man tourism provides a classic case in tourism studies. From the turn of the century to the 1960s, the island was in perennial bloom as a northern British Isles affordable tourism experience. Every summer the working class from southern Scotland and northern England gathered on the ferries and descended upon the Isle of Man for their annual summer vacations. Victorian-style hotels sprang up, ringing the various harbours throughout the island.
However, during the 1960s, the taste of the British traveller changed, particularly with the advent of inexpensive travel packages to such destinations as Spain. For the past 30 years tourism has been in general decline, although it has made some advancement in recent years. Today, tourism accounts for approximately 2 per cent of the GDP with close to 130,000 non-business visitors coming to the island each year. To attract these visitors, £3.5 million (equivalent to British sterling) are spent on marketing, special events and information support services, with an additional £70,000 spent on the grading of accommodations.
Some of the challenges facing the industry include redefining the product from that of a seaside resort to a cultural/leisure destination, overcoming the barriers of sea and air in terms of time and cost, upgrading the outdated facilities and easing the inevitable tensions between industry and government.
How the Isle of Man deals with changing tourism market and transportation challenges, and how it redefines the tourism product, provides lessons for all islands. The willingness of government officials and operators to discuss these challenges, and to share experiences and possible solutions, was refreshing and worthwhile.
NAIP ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
Funding Announcement Made
by T. St. J. N. Bates
St. John Bates is Clerk of Tynwald, a Visiting Professor of Law at the Universities of Lancaster, England, and Strathclyde, Scotland, and Director of the Centre of Legislative and Parliamentary Studies at Strathclyde.
We were very pleased in July to welcome to the Isle of Man for the first time the members of the North Atlantic Islands Programme Advisory Committee, and others with an interest in the Lessons from the Edge research project.
In what has become an established pattern, the Advisory Committee reviewed the management of the research project, informed itself on the politics, economy and culture of the Isle of Man, and sought to present the objectives of the project to people in the island who were interested in, and likely to be influenced by, the outcome of the research.
So, after attending the Tynwald Day celebrations [see June, 1995 Lessons], the Advisory Committee undertook a heavy schedule of meetings. Subsequently, members were able to obtain good insight into the Isle of Man through a series of presentations – with valuable question-and-answer sessions – made by Mr. John Cashen, Chief Financial Officer in the Treasury; Mr. David Barrows, Director of Marketing in the Department of Tourism and Leisure; Mr. Ken Bawden, Chief Executive of the Department of Industry; Mr. Tony Warren, Chief Executive of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; Mr. David McNeil, Commercial Development Director of Manx Airline; and Mr. Stephen Carse, Chief Economic Advisor in the Treasury. Insights gleaned were deepened in the more social setting of an informal lunch party at our home where my wife, Jane, and I were pleased to welcome, amongst the other guests, the Honourable Miles Walker, Chief Minister of the Isle of Man, the Honourable Tony Brown, Minister for Tourism and Leisure and the Honourable John Corrin, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
As with earlier Advisory Committee meetings, a public presentation of the research project was made at a well-attended gathering which included a significant number of Government Ministers, senior civil servants and leaders of industry in the Isle of Man. It gave me great pleasure to be able to announce at that session that the Isle of Man Departments of Industry and of Tourism and Leisure had both agreed to fund the research project; in each case the funding is £5,000 sterling per year for three years. This demonstrates, I believe, a considerable initial commitment to the project by the Isle of Man Government.
Amongst those who were in the Isle of Man for the meetings were Mr. Oli Jacobsen, Minister of Industry in the Faroe Islands; Mr. Paul Connolly, Member of the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly; Ms. Susan Sherk, Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Tourism Culture and Recreation of Newfoundland and labrador; and Mr. Charlie Cooke and Mr. Jim Revell, both of the Insurance Company of Prince Edward Island. We were able to arrange for them to have a series of meetings with those involved in the public and private sector of the tourism, manufacturing and finance industries in the Island. I know that many good contacts were made that show promise of bearing fruit in the future.
All in all, we had a productive time in the Isle of Man, and my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed both the company of our guests and the opportunity to show them something of the beauties of the Isle of Man.
by Barry Bartmann
At their most recent meeting in the Isle of Man, members of the Advisory Committee unanimously selected Dr. Tom Baum as Principal Researcher in the Tourism Sector. Dr. Baum holds a Personal Chair as Professor of International Hotel and Tourism Management in the University of Buckingham.
The Committee had received a number of very impressive submissions. But Dr. Baum brings to this position extensive research and a prolific publications record in the particular issues of island tourism. Moreover, he convincingly demonstrated his authority in these cold-water islands, so long neglected in international tourism scholarship.
Already, Dr. Baum has organized an international group of distinguished researchers who will join him on this project. Soon we expect to have a graduate from the University of Iceland in place to take a degree under Dr. Baum's supervision and to serve as his principal research assistant.
Dr. Baum will be making his first report to the Advisory Committee in the Åland Islands. This will be followed by his visits to Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island to meet with principals in tourism in both the private and public sectors.
Tom Baum is Professor of International Hotel and Tourism Management at the University of Buckingham. He holds BA and MA degrees in Education from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, his MPhil through Nottingham Trent University and a PhD in international tourism policy from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.
Professor Baum has published widely in the field of tourism, with a particular focus on human resource development. His books include: Human Resource Issues in International Tourism (1993), Managing H[uman] R[esources] for the European Tourism and Hospitality Industry (1995) and, with Michael Conlin, Island Tourism: Management Principles and Practice (1995).
He is a consultant for governments and the private sector in Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.
by Tom Baum
Tourism, by a number of measures, is now the world's largest industry and continues to grow at rates that exceed those of other sectors and the global economy as a whole. Tourism is also an industry of geographical dispersion, with the potential to impact upon communities, large and small, throughout the world. There are few locations today which have not recognised the potential economic benefits of tourism and, increasingly, this awareness is balanced by understanding of the environmental, social and cultural consequences which unsustainable tourism growth can have.
The islands of the North Atlantic Islands Programme (NAIP) have widely differing experiences of international tourism. Their natural and cultural resources, those features which attract visitors,are also diverse. And yet, as with the other dimensions considered under the Programme, there are identifiable common themes to tourism in relatively isolated, cold-water locations. These relate to issues such as access; cultural and environmental protection; community responsiveness; marketing remoteness; and sustaining a highly seasonal economic activity. The list can go on. The purpose of the NAIP tourism study is to build upon what is already a growing body of knowledge about the impact and development potential of tourism to remote island locations. The study will identify the characteristics of tourism within each of the seven island destinations as well as providing analysis of themes common to all or many of them. The opportunity to learn from the experience of other islands will be central to the study which will, we hope, also provide the foundations of a paradigm for the analysis of tourism in cold-water locations. Above all, the outcomes of the study are intended to be of practical value to those with an interest in tourism in the context of the seven islands as well as other cold-water locations.
The study will depend heavily upon the contribution of public and private sector tourism interests in the seven islands and beyond. As Principal Researcher, I will also be able to call upon the expertise of a number of internationally recognised authorities in the field of island tourism.
These experts are:
Professor Richard Butler of the University of Western Ontario, Canada who has published widely in the field of island tourism, especially in northern regions.
Dr. Chris Cooper of the University of Surrey, England whose doctoral study was of tourism in an island context and who has maintained this interest through research and consulting.
Michael Conlin of the Australian International Hotel School, formerly of Bermuda College, and co-editor of Island Tourism: Management Principles and Practice.
Dr. Ram Mudambi of the University of Buckingham, England who, as an eocnometrician, has undertaken a number of island-based tourism studies.
In addition, the Tourism Research Programme will benefit from the guidance of Professor Don Hawkins, Director of the International Institute of Tourism Studies at George Washington University, and one of the foremost experts on tourism development.
Institute of Island Studies