Carlos Costa and Dimitrios Buhalis

The Tourism Management Dynamics: Trends, management and tools book provides a vision for the way in which the external environment of the tourism industry will be progressing in the future through the examination of key trends. It then provides a range of implements to equip businessmen, politicians, managers and academics with innovative management techniques and business tools that will enable them to take better advantage of these trends and strengthen their competitiveness.

The book demonstrates that the future management dynamics of the tourism industry will result from a group of external and a group of internal new trends. The external new trends influence dramatically the tourism industry through changing demand patterns, resources available as well as legislation and regulation. One of the most influential trends is demographics (Chapter 2). The changing profile of the world population and the ageing of several main markets as a result of low birth rates will drive the tourism industry in search for new leisure markets. Senior tourism will emerge thanks to the growing availability of free time and disposable income in this market segment, although this market will require different products and services. However, a life course approach seeks not to impose a normal or ideal life path as articulated in traditional life-cycle models, but to explore the transition periods in people's lives which influence their needs, preferences and consumer behaviour. Yet, growing numbers of new travellers appear as...