experiences and co-productions with the museumenvironment through imaginings and emotions.Middleton's vision, and presumably that of theAssociation of Independent Museums, by omissiondenies the unique selling point of museums'products, and the facilitation of these experiences.One feels from this report that the Association of

Independent Museums is metamorphosing into theAssociation of Independent Museum Businesses,but underplaying one vital element of the market-ing mix, their product itself.

RICHARDPRENTICE

Glasgow Caledonian University

RURAL TOURISM - AN INTRODUCTION byRichard and Julia Sharpley. International ThomsonBusiness Press, London, 1997. xviii� 165 pp. £15.99(paperback). ISBN 0-415-14010-2

This text, which builds upon the ®rst author'searlier work (Sharpley, 1996), has the stated aims of:(1) introducing readers to the study of ruraltourism; (2) drawing relevant issues together; (3)examining the growth, development and demandfor rural tourism as a segment of the tourismmarket; and (4) considering the role and potential oftourism in socio-economic development and theregeneration of rural areas. The book's overallobjectives are to demonstrate and explain the wayin which rural tourism is inextricably linked to theresources upon which it depends and henceemphasising the necessity for an integrated andsustainable approach to development. In this way,marketing, planning and management issues areaddressed.The authors well emphasise that there is little to

be gained from studying rural tourism in isolation¼ wider external factors in¯uence participationand role in socio-economic regeneration and diver-si®cation (p. 1). They set the wider context well, andin a relatively short volume competently evaluatethis `complex and diverse area of study' (p. 2). As anexplicitly introductory work, the volume has sevenapparently logically ordered chapters, and withinthose chapters further order is established througha setting out of de®nitions and approaches beforegoing on to apply those in a rural tourism contextusing case study exempli®cation. The dozen or sowide-ranging case studies are taken from secondarysources and are positioned within most chapters asseparate entities.The ®rst chapter, `Understanding rural tourism'

introduces the reader to basic de®nitions and anidenti®cation of the concepts and characteristicssurrounding rural tourism and the nature of`countryside'. `The countryside: a resource for

tourism', next examines the multipurpose natureof the countryside, especially the relationshipbetween tourism and agriculture. It evaluates therole of European Union (EU) structural funds anduses a case study from Ireland to exemplify the keyissues. The EU LEADER Programme is exempli®edthrough the SPARC (South Pembrokeshire Partner-ship for Action with Rural Communities) project inSouth Wales. Finally, bene®ts and costs of ruraltourism development are evaluated.Chapter 3, `The demand for rural tourism',

discusses `measurement criteria', returning to thequestion of what is `rural', and goes on to look athistorical growth patterns Ð using Utah as a casestudy Ð and the factors and characteristics of ruraltourism demand. An evaluation of tourist motiva-tions, through a discussion of push and pull factors,attractions and activities, is complemented by casestudy exempli®cation from the English Lake Dis-trict. `The supply of rural tourism' next establishes aframework based on the notion of the `total ruraltourism product', and follows the ®ve-stage struc-tural±functional model of outdoor recreationalexperiences suggested by Clawson and Knetsch(1966) Ð anticipation, travel to site, on-site experi-ence, return travel home, recollection. This chaptergoes on to examine the suppliers of rural tourismand to then separately assess the role of the publicand private sectors. National parks in Australia,England and Wales, and the example of Spanishparadores, are used as case studies.Chapter 5, `Marketing the countryside for tour-

ism', discusses approaches to, and de®nitions of,marketing, before going on to apply them in therural tourism context: Bronte Country is used as acase study. An important theme to emerge is thelow level of marketing associated with ruraltourism, particularly as most small-scale privateenterprises lack ®nancial and human resources,including appropriate expertise and training. In-deed, it is in the area of marketing that the fragilityof rural tourism development is perhaps mostexposed. Rural tourism development requiresmany skills to be successful, yet it is often under-taken in the hands of untrained entrepreneurs and

* Correspondence to: Dr Derek Hall, The Scottish Agri-cultural College, Auchincruive, KA60 5HW. E-mail:d.hall@au.sac.ac.

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 2, 147±150 (2000)

148 Book Reviews

farmers, overseen by small town and village localof®cials, in situations where capital may be in shortsupply yet where the time-scale for success is oftenshort (Lane, 1998).

`Planning andmanaging rural tourism' addressesthe need for effective planning and management.Stages of that process are dealt with sequentially:objective setting, surveys and research, analysis andsynthesis, proposals and recommendations, and assuch provide a useful template with wide applic-ability for students new to planning their learningexperiences. Providing an interesting counterpoint,case study exempli®cation is taken from the work ofLesley Roberts (1996) on the rural tourism devel-opment process in the Bran area of Transylvania.This crucial chapter goes on to address sustainablerural tourism development (in three pages!), andthis leads on to discussions of community involve-ment and partnerships. Visitor management is alsoincluded in the chapter, drawing in the Tarkaproject from southwest England for case studyexempli®cation. This almost breathless chapterrounds off with a boxed behavioural code forvisitors to Canyon Country, and concludes withallusions to tourism's role in regeneration anddiversi®cation, and emphasises the need for plan-ning and management strategies that are integratedand holistic, sustainable and innovative. Clearlythis chapter could have easily been broken downinto two or more separate pieces, and the reader canalmost tangibly feel the frustration of the authors inhaving to rein in their arguments to meet thepublisher's length restrictions. Although suchdecisions must inevitably be arbitrary, given theinterconnectedness of material, there is perhaps anargument for placing this chapter earlier in thework, given the key issues and organising frame-works embraced.

The ®nal chapter of this good value introductorywork, `Issues in rural tourism', begins by appearingto be weaving the strands of the previous chapterstogether in an integrated concluding statement, butthen tends to drift into a somewhat fragmenteddiscussion of current and future rural tourism

management issues, including highly pertinentquestions of access, sustainable transport, housingissues and second home ownership, the impact ofurbanisation on rural society and its values, thedisabled and ethnic minority markets (but noreference to gender or age as segment identi®ers).This last chapter looks hurriedly put together,rather disjointed and arbitrary, and overall, despiteraising important issues, is a poor re¯ection of theoften excellent synthesis that has preceded it.Anyone who, because of time constraints, dips intothe ®nal chapter of this book to get a ¯avour of thecontent and quality, will be badly misled. There isperhaps a pertinent issue here that authors andpublishers may need to address.The above reservation aside, in some ways this

volume, albeit an explicitly introductory text, ismore satisfying than other rural tourism textspublished in recent years in that there is acontinuity of authorship, a feeling of real synthesisand distillation, and a welcome roundedness.

REFERENCES

Clawson, M. and Knetsch J. (1966), Economics ofOutdoor Recreation, Baltimore: Johns HopkinsPress.

Lane, B. (1998), Rural tourism: global overviews, inRural Tourism Management: Sustainable Op-tions, Conference Programme, Scottish Agricul-tural College, Auchincruive, p. 3.

Roberts, L. (1996), Barriers to the development ofrural tourism in the Bran area of Transylvania, inMobinson, M., Evans, N. and Callaghan, P.(Editers), Tourism and Culture: Image, Identityand Marketing. Sunderland: Business EducationPublishers, 185±196.

Sharpley, R. (1996), Tourism and Leisure in theCountryside, Huntingdon: Elm Publications. 2ndedn.

DEREK HALL

The Scottish Agricultural College, Auchincruive

INTEGRATED HERITAGE MANAGEMENT:PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE by C. Michael Halland Simon Mcarthur. The Stationery Of®ce, Lon-don. No of pages: 250. Price £ 45.00 (hardback).ISBN 0-1 12-90571-4.

Hall and McArthur start their adventure by statingthat Heritage Management is recognised as anincreasingly complex and controversial domain.About 250 pages later readers have gone through awide range of concepts, techniques, policies andpractices which hopefully eliminate some of thecomplexities but nevertheless illustrate clearly themultiphased problems emerging in heritage man-

* Correspondence to: Dr Dimitrios Buhalis, Departmentof Tourism, University of Westminster, 35 MaryleboneRoad, London NW1 5LS. E-mail: buhalid@wmin.ac.uk

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 2, 147±150 (2000)

Book Reviews 149