Carlos Costa and Dimitrios Buhalis

Anticipating and predicting the future has always been among men's main wishes. To know what people will like most, and what sort of products and services will be sold and consumed in the future, are key questions that businessmen, politicians, managers and academics would love to have an answer to, if they could. When looking at the way in which tourism will be shaped in the future, there are two dimensions one should take into account. Tourism businesses will undergo major changes as a result of new trends observed in the new emerging consumers. Inevitably new and innovative products will change industry structures and operational requirements. Such a discussion is expanded in the accompanying book entitled Tourism Business Frontiers Consumers, Products and Industry.

It is on the second dimension of change that this book will be concentrating. The external environment, and the way in which it is anticipated, understood, managed and planned, will decisively influence the success of tourism in the future. Planners, managers, politicians and academics ought to be aware of their external environment and develop techniques and tools to improve their performance. The success of tourism, both at the micro and macro levels, will very much depend on the way organizations and destinations as a whole are planned, managed and marketed.

This book does not deal with the 'art' of guessing the future. On the contrary, it attempts to predict the future by using a wide range of trends and scientific...