Nankervis, A 2009, 'The nature of the tourism industry' in A. Nankervis (ed.) Vulnerability and sustainability in the global tourism industry: a model for practice, VDM Verlag, United States, pp. 12-77.
As earlier inferred, the tourism industry has many unique characteristics which both clearly distinguish it from more traditional industry counterparts, and render it especially 'vulnerable' to pressures and threats to its sustainability and survival. These characteristics include, but are not restricted to: its structure; its products and processes; its business environment, and; the nature of strategy and planning in tourism. These characteristics will first be described and analysed in this chapter, and subsequently explored in relation to a model of 'vulnerability' developed by the author, in following chapters.