This book provides a varied collection of recent research relating to small businesses in tourism. In doing so it reflects the eclecticism of interest and method associated with this under-researched and under-theorised area of investigation. Topics range from the potential contribution of small firms to achieving social or economic goals to understanding more about business performance and growth. As is common in tourism research, disciplinary boundaries are routinely transgressed in the interests of gaining greater illumination. Insights from a variety of countries are offered, sometimes as a result of trans-national collaboration initiated specifically for this book.

The distinctive feature of this volume is the fact that it presents results of primary and secondary studies concerning tourism SMEs that operate in a range of European contexts. Chapters discuss research into tourism SMEs in established EU member states, notanly Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the UK.

Over the past decade, the field of urban tourism has consolidated with the appearance of several books that concentrate upon the Western European and North American experience. Recently, the scope and range of urban research has widened considerably, including the welcome appearance of studies that examine the tourism phenomenon in cities outside the Euro-American heartland. Despite this growing international body of debate and scholarship on tourism and cities, particularly in the developed North, literature that relates to the developing world as a whole, and to Africa in particular, remains sparse. The task of Urban Tourism in the Developing World: The South African Experience is to augment the current international scholarship concerning urban tourism in the developing world. More especially, the contributors draw attention to a range of case studies from South Africa that provide some starting points to address the uneven scholarly coverage of urban tourism the African context has received to date. In addition, the research material presented here seeks to contribute toward raising the South African, and indeed the African profile, within growing international scholarship concerning issues of urban tourism and development. This collection aims to expand an emerging South African and African tourism research "voice" concerning the tourism and development nexus, as well as to stem critiques that this body of research appears to have developed in a theoretical vacuum, divorced from broader international tourism research discourses. This collection of essays not only further develops an independent South African tourism perspective, but also presents research that is closely tied to international urban tourism research debates. In addition, this analysis of urban tourism in the South African context enriches the rather Western-oriented theories of urban tourism discourse through its emphasis on how urban tourism is evolving in urban Africa. Christian M. Rogerson is professor of human geography in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Gustav Visser is senior lecturer in human geography in the Department of Geography, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

The development of tourism has historically been characterised by enterprising individuals. Small businesses are the backbone of the tourism and hospitality industry. However, entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial process have long been marginal topics within tourism scholarship. This is a critical, yet accessible, introduction to the subject. Structured into twelve chapters, this book takes an intuitive step-by-step progression through entrepreneurship in tourism: context, theoretical perspectives and definitions; the entrepreneurial process from concept to reality to growth, policy context and future directions. Featuring learning outcomes, ‘reflective practice’ activities and a range of international case studies that encourage critical thinking and practical applications, this is essential reading for anyone studying tourism degree programmes at undergraduate and graduate level.