Abstract

This paper examines retail stores within tourist economies, and the possible investment needed to ensure optimal tourist development and a healthy and sustainable local economy. Comparing and contrasting the core tourist retail offers within two holiday resorts, it is suggested that local retailers in Crete are better at managing to meet the needs of the modern consumer than those on Tenerife. This has implications for the profitability of the retailers and income to the resorts as a whole. Improved tourist retial, it is proposed, can be achieved by extending the biophilic nature of resorts successfully into their retail area.