Exploring tourism development on uninhabited islands

Travel Industry has become the bread winner of many Island destinations across the globe. The practices, policies and institutional forms used in developing tourism on public lands vary from destination to destination. The research aims to identify the practices, policies and institutional forms in development of tourism consisting of resorts or hotels in public lands specifically on uninhabited islands. Public lands referred in this thesis include lands, beaches, sea owned by governments or the \u27public sector\u27. The term \u27public sector\u27 covers the whole range of public organizations from national government ministries and departments to government business enterprises and local government tourism departments (Elliott, 1997). The countries studied in this research belong to the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as categorized by United Nations Economic and Social Affairs. The increase demand for uninhabited islands has lead to change in the conventional land use rights and management of public land in previously unstructured communities in island nations. According to Hall \u26 Page (1996) there are complicated land ownership traditions in which land is owned communally rather than by individuals and in which land is held in trust to be used to sustain a community group or tribe rather than commodity to be traded. Hence, to optimize the positive influence of resort and hotel development in island nations it is important to identify the changing practices, policies and institutional forms in island nations