Islandness & Authenticity Through an Island Tourism Lens

This paper investigates how themes related to islandness emerged in residents’ shared perceptions of authentic Prince Edward Island (PEI) tourism experiences. Survey data were collected from over 400 Island residents, who selected from ten tourism categories and provided open-text responses describing experiences they considered authentically representative of PEI. The dataset was analyzed in two stages: first, inductive coding of responses to identify the diversity of ways residents articulated authenticity, and second, a deductive re-analysis drawing on established frameworks of islandness. Findings reveal that residents consistently embed elements of islandness—boundedness, seascapes, small-scale community, and attachment to place—into their understandings of authenticity. Beaches, coastal activities, and local foodways were most frequently described as authentically PEI, alongside community-based events such as ceilidhs (a Gaelic social gathering, popular in Scotland and Atlantic Canada, that features music, dancing, storytelling, and community socializing), lobster suppers, and festivals. Importantly, authenticity was described as a year-round quality, extending beyond the summer tourism season to include off-season encounters with nature and community life. This study demonstrates that for Islanders, authenticity and islandness are inseparable, offering insights into how residents conceptualize tourism in ways that reinforce place identity and deepen the theoretical dialogue between island studies and authenticity scholarship.