This paper focuses on the identification and explanation of the attitudes of a sample of urban residents towards tourism development on Crete and their grouping with respect to these attitudes. Urban residents of Crete are quite strong in their support for tourism. However, the residents are not homogenous in their perceptions of tourism development. Education and employment in tourism were found to be the major single factors affecting the attitudes of residents of the island. A segmentation procedure based on attitude statements produced three clusters: the 'Advocates' (identified by their high appreciation of tourism benefits); the 'Socially and Environmentally Concerned' (characterised by a consensus towards the environmental and social costs from tourism expansion); and the 'Economic Sceptics' (who showed lower appreciation of tourism's economic benefits). The findings of the study are discussed with reference to the social exchange and the social representations theories and the conclusions of the study are provided.

Despite the increasing research on residents'attitudes toward tourism development, there is limited research on other community groups'perceptions of various tourism matters. The literature suggests that it is essential to appreciate community groups' perceptions and preferences because the measurement of these perceptions plays a vital role in the future success of a destination. As a result, this study was conducted to measure the perceptions of tourism development in three Cretan community groups: residents reliant on tourism employment, nonreliant residents, and tourism business people. The aim was to investigate whether, as social exchange theory suggests, tourism business people and reliant residents are more positive toward tourism and further tourism development due to their economic and/or employment dependency on tourism, and to use community perceptions as a guide for the future tourism development of the island. From the findings, it is evident that the three groups expressed a high degree of positivity toward tourism and tourism development, although there were some differences in their agreement for the types of tourists, facilities, and actions considered beneficial for the island.

This study aims to provide a better understanding on cruise travel experience by studying cruise ship passengers motivation, satisfaction and likelihood of return to the port of Heraklion (Crete, Greece). From the fi ndings, it is evident that 'exploration' and 'escape' were among the main motivations of visitors, and 'product and services' as well as 'tour pace' were signifi cant dimensions in shaping overall satisfaction levels. Nevertheless, onshore activities were restricted to sightseeing and shopping, because of the limited available time. Based on these fi ndings, relevant proposals are made in order to provide positive port experiences.

The hospitality industry generates benefits for many host communities including employment generation and foreign exchange earnings. However, the hospitality industry often leads to external dependency contributing to a loss of local control over resources, migrant workforce and leakages outside the local economy, seriously reducing industry's potential for generating net financial advantages and growth for the local economy. Despite the variation of size of hospitality firms, there is still limited research on how well different size hospitality firms contribute to local economic development, something which this paper addresses, taking as a case the island of Crete. The findings suggest that the smaller the size of hospitality firm the larger the benefits to the local economy.

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