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ognizant Communication Corporation |
ANNOUNCING AN IMPORTANT NEW BOOK FROM A PIONEER IN THE FIELD...
May 2004
WESTERN TOURISM
Can Paradise Be Reclaimed?
By Clare A. Gunn
Professor Emeritus, Member ASLA, Texas A&M University
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252 pages, Softcover 50 illustrations (24 color) $48.00 + $5.00 S&H
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Since the explosion of autocamping travel in the 1920s, America's West has remained a popular travel destination. Initially caught by surprise by this sudden growth, the area's consequent responses to this increase in tourism were not fully planned or developed.
This important new book, written by an authority in the field, identifies the changes in tourism in the West and what these signify for future planners and developers. Thi book focuses on four major destinations—Arizona, California, Oregon, and Yellowstone—that were as popular in the 1920s as they are today. To provide perspective, the author has included a case of autocamping travel to the West in 1929; this case allows the reader to compare and contrast characteristics of tourism to the area in the 1920s with those of today. After reviewing and evaluating past tourism developments, Gunn offers detailed guidelines for sustainable tourism. Specific recommendations for better planning and development of this popular tourist destination are provided. Emphasis is placed on the future role of landscape architects, as they have historically had a significant impact on land design in the region.
In an endorsement for the book, Jere Stuart French, F.A.S.L.A., writes:
Clare Gunn is a blessed Maverick of the tourist industry. Where so many books on tourism tend toward dry cost accounting and development practices, this author has written passionately and instructively on the broad themes of preserving our natural Western heritage, and the means of sustaining federal wilderness areas by far-sighted tourism planning.
It should be noted that this is not a book aimed exclusively at the tourist industry. Almost anyone with an appreciation for the wilderness of the West will find it both enlightening and easily readable.
The book is divided evenly between an account of these Western places, their usages, the persons involved, and their histories, and a 1929 carcamping adventure through the West with the author's family. Fro some readers these personal glimpses of the West experiences firsthand from the long ago era of early motor cars are likely to be the most intriguing chapters in this remarkable book. It is a must read for the tourist industry, and should also be required reading for landscape architects employed by the public sector, as well as for all employees of the National Park Service, the US forest Service, BLM, and Western State Parks.