Godfrey Baldacchino Canada Research Chair (Island Studies) University of Prince Edward Island, Canada Extreme Tourism – Lessons from the World’s Cold Water Islands

Assumptions about Island Tourist Paradises: Warm Water Tropical Climate Exotic/Erotic Sites

Is Cold Water & Challenging Weather an Obstacle to Tourism? Do Islands add a Particular Twist to Tourism Policy & Practice?

Key Questions (1)  Is there a Specific Island ‘Lure’? What exactly attracts tourists to (small) islands? (slower tempo; physical remove; taking it all in)  Is bad weather less of a bother in cold areas, since it is expected and indeed critical to special interest travellers?

Key Questions (2)  Is there a cold water tourist type?  Is extreme location and insularity a blessing: – regulating flow; protecting environment; preserving difference; preventing lapse into mass tourism?  Expensive, hazardous, irregular, unreliable access: all part of the cold water tourist experience?

Key Questions (3)  Rapid, deep and intense impact of tourism on small islands – high level of openness – is tourism hazardous?  Are cold water islands the ultimate raw outposts of civilisation – destined to enjoy the latest and final boom? Or should islands remain foreboding and forbidden?

Key Questions (4)  Inaccessibility is part of Competitive Asset - but easier to maintain where there is no population. Are land use and access conflicts likely?  Political peripherality may spawn bold (alien) tourist elite – Dangerous?

Lessons  A new category of destinations  A re-interpretation of the island ‘draw’  Bad weather as ally – no seasonality paradigm  Difficult access as ally – no mass potential  A specific combination of services – based on small numbers.