This semester, Rebecca and I are enrolled in Leadership and Sustainable Development, a class that is mostly online, but also meets a few Saturdays out of the semester, that travels to St. Croix, an island in the Caribbean to interact with members Cruzan society who will speak to the class about economic and sustainable development and environmental protection. As I did in Jordan (see below), we'll have the opportunity to interact with laypeople, taxi drivers, bartenders, etc. to talk to them about life on the island and in the region.
To start it off, I'm throwing in the below essay I just finished for the class. Its meant to point out the negative effects of tourism. Yes, its a tad sensationalist but that's the point. I'm flying out this Saturday, so expect a few posts the week of March 17 through the 24.
...
So You Think
You’re Helping?
“Tourists
came around and looked into our tipis. That those were the homes we choose to
live in didn’t bother them at all. They untied the door, opened the flap,
barged right in, touching our things, poking through our bedrolls, inspecting
everything. It boggles my mind that tourists feel they have the god-given right
to intrude ever.”
- Russell Means, Where
White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means
Overview
Though he is not from the
Caribbean, Mean’s words are no less meaningful. There is an assumption made on
behalf of economically stagnant but environmentally exotic locations that
tourism can and should be their economic savior. Ignoring the complexities of
global trade and economic policy, economists point out that tourism is the only
solution for locations that cannot grow their own food, have no real
manufacturing base, or have other poverty inducing conditions.
Tourism is not a panacea. The
industry is not separate from the place it profits from. In fact, it very
distinctly shapes cultural evolution over time. The definition of tourist: noun, a person who is traveling or
visiting a place for pleasure. Pleasure is what tourists seek to find when
arrive in what has been marketed to them as an island-paradise. What happens
when tourists do not find pleasure? Local economies reliant on tourism
manufacture it.
Culture adapts. Food and drink
needs to be just exotic enough to fascinate the wide-eyed, sunburnt, drunken
tourist but not enough to scare them off. The tourist expects some sort of
cultural immersion, despite their cruise ship’s arrival and departure being
only a few short hours apart, and the happy-go-lucky local will put on a show,
even though that particular ritual only happens on high holy days or with the
death of a relative. Adaptation leads to commodification.
Nothing is genuine and heartfelt
anymore. Everything is a good to be traded or sold in order to encourage the
now hung-over, bloated tourist to tell his or her friends to come to (insert destination
here) where they even serve Coronas and there is a Burger King down the street.
This continues over time, subjugating local residents and native-born
inhabitants to the staging a dog and pony that their ancestors would be ashamed
to see, with low-wages, perpetuated income inequality, and cultural degradation
being the socio-economic order of the day.
While the aforementioned tourist
passes out in his air-conditioned cabin on a cruise ship to his next scheduled “cultural”
immersion, only one-fifth of the money he or she has spent over the course of
their vacation makes it into the economies of the places they visited.
How many thousands of dollars did
they pay to their airline company, cruise line, or all-inclusive resort owned
by a company based in their home country? What percentage of the cost of last
night’s ten Coronas goes into the pocket of the local bartender and how much
went to paying for the import of said Coronas to an island that brews its own
beer, but a beer that tourists have not taken a liking to? What percentage of
the sum total of dollars spent go into the pockets of the local residents who
need more disposable income? And how much go into the pockets of
already-wealthy resort owners, both local and international?
The environment is a topic of its
own. Pollution, undue stress on local waste management systems, on top of
overuse of already low-levels of potable water are all factors that the tourist
uploading photos to Facebook has never even thought of, let alone concerned him
or herself with.
Opinion Statement
This essay, filled with
hypothetical questions, generalizations about tourists, and worst-case
scenarios is meant to prove a point. Nothing should be taken at face value and
everything has layers upon layers of complexity worth questioning. If we accept
that tourism is the only viable economic engine for places like St. Croix,
USVI, then we have two choices: ignore the externalities or understand and
acknowledge them and do our best to rectify and prevent them. I believe tourism
is the easiest way to generate revenue for islands in the Caribbean but not at
the expense of local culture and life for tourists’ amusement.
