An application of the tourism destination area life cycle to Barbados

Butler's well‐documented concept of the tourism destination area life cycle (Butler 1980) was adapted from the marketing notion of the product life cycle and used to examine the rise and decline of tourist resorts and the regions within which they are located. Initially few empirical studies attempted to examine the validity of this concept but published findings of such applications have begun to come forward. Among the studies available, that of Cooper and Jackson (1989) on the Isle of Man demonstrates the descriptive value of the concept and its ability to act as an analytical framework for explaining the evolution of tourism in particular areas. However they do note (Cooper & Jackson 1989 p. 386) that Butler's model is less valuable as a prescriptive tool.