The purpose of this article was to observe the relationship between the tourism movement and the economic development of island territories during the global economic crisis (2008-2010). The aim of the paper was also answer the questions: why did some island territories react differently to the global economic crisis and if the coefficient of variation is a good indicator for assessing the changes in tourism movement during crisis events. Countries that have larger tourism expenditures as a proportion of GDP had a weak relationship between changes in tourist arrivals and changes in GDP. The islands prone to the global economic crisis did not have a stronger correlation between changes in tourist arrivals and GDP. The coefficient of variation was a good measure to indicate the island regions that were characterized by major changes in the volume of tourist movements.