1. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China
Abstract With the development of tourist resorts in China, resorts are taking on special characteristics of being "isolated islands".The fact of resorts being isolated islands is similar to that of enclave tourism overseas.
Enclave tourism refers to one special type of tourism, which the demand and benefits of local communities are generally marginalized. Resort enclaves were mainly developed by foreign investors for international tourists with high consumption. Tourism enclaves generally exist in developing countries rich in tourism resources and short for capitals for development. Therefore, foreign capitals come into and gradually control the tourism development of the developing countries. The enclavity of tourism resorts are then resulted. The development of enclave tourism not only minimizes the benefits that host countries and communities gained from tourism, but makes the tourism development socially, economically and environmentally unsustainable. From late 1970s, many researchers began to pay attention to the study on enclave tourism. They carried out their studies from different perspectives and got significant findings.
In response to the "isolated island" phenomenon emerging in China, this paper reviews the study of enclave tourism overseas, which has similar features to the resort "island". Based on the magazines of Annuals of Tourism Research and Tourism Management, the author selects articles related to enclave tourism in the last 20 years. By using the method of literature analysis, statistics and comparative analysis, the author intends to shed light on the study of enclave tourism, review and evaluate the study of enclave tourism on concept, characteristics, causation and tourism impacts.
The conclusions of the review of enclave tourism overseas are twofold: on one hand, the perspectives that foreign researchers used to measure tourism impacts are of great help to study the similar phenomenon of Chinese tourism resorts; on the other hand, the parties concerned enclave tourism overseas are communities in the developing countries and big companies of the developed countries, emphasizing the foreign ownership of tourist facilities. In the study of Chinese isolated resorts, however, more attention should be paid to the relationship between resorts and the nearby communities and other factors beyond the ownership of facilities, such as the socio-economic conditions of local communities and the linkages between tourism and other sectors. The understanding of studies on enclave resort overseas could help to analyze similar phenomena emerging in the development of resorts in China. By doing so can we not only get reference of furthering tourism impact study of resorts in China, but also obtain effective solutions to the existing problems of tourism impacts of Chinese resorts.
2008, Vol. 23 
