Book excerpt: How can owners and managers ensure that their considerable capital investments will return a competitive return on their investments? How can users and owners be sure they enjoy the promises of tantalizing marketing and real estate claims? Managing Sustainable Resorts Profitably combines business management principles with environmental and social concerns to offer development solutions to these questions. By taking an holistic and contemporary approach to the problem of developing sustainable tourism operations, this book provides a comprehensive assessment of the strategies that need to be considered by various governments, developers and, in particular, the customer-investor. The major features of resort development covered by this book include: • Environmental scanning of principal external and internal influential factors • The curse and blessings of seasonality • Competition for people’s recreation and retirement dollars • Guest activity programming • Environmental issues • Cruise ships as mobile resorts • Staffing issues in isolated areas • Financial challenges for owners and operators alike • Risk Management • Mutually beneficial options for various stakeholders Based on an analysis of global resort opportunities and trends, the book focuses on those generic features that differentiate regional resort management from urban-centric management needs and priorities. Using comparative case studies the author emphases best case/benchmark examples of a range of resorts – large and small, urban and rural - to illustrate what can be achieved.