cities in less developed countries perform as urban tourism destinations relative to their equivalents in the developed world and how can we assess the adequacy of the infrastructure that they provide? What about terrorism and its impact of key urban tourism sites? Are urban centres more vulnerable as targets because of the presence of large numbers of local residents relative to for example resorts where tourists predominate? What about the predominance of tourism decisionmaking being undertaken in urban settings and the tourism destination bureaucracies being based in these places versus rural and regional areas? What about the dual role of cities as consumption places for residents and for visitors, including those from the hinterland regions? When do we consider resorts to be cities and vice versa? The diversity of these questions is a reminder that the field of urban tourism offers up many opportunities for further research, both applied and concept-based.
The authors enjoy challenging conventional wisdom. They adopt a highly sceptical view towards the practicality of community-based tourism planning and highlight the wide range of implementation difficulties. In the chapter ''Marketing Urban Tourism'' they challenge the effectiveness and merit of the public/ private partnerships which have been such a prominent feature of much recent urban regeneration. They are also very critical of the conventional wisdom about place marketing and seem to take the view that marketing is given undue prominence in the management of the urban tourism development process which they regard as leading to what they describe as ''serial reproduction and sameness''. They are critical of the pursuit of mega-events and raise associated issues about human rights. In adopting an advocacy approach the authors engage effectively in a critical engagement with the reader which is somewhat unusual for such texts but from this reviewers point of view is welcome and refreshing. This book is an engaging read and should ultimately succeed in meeting the substantial challenge that was set of meeting the multiple needs of its diverse target audiences.