Caribbean History From
Colonialism to Independence
AM217
David Lambert
Lecture: The growth of tourism
Tuesday 1st March,
11am-12pm
The growth of tourism
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The origins of Caribbean tourism
Tourism in Cuba and Jamaica
Modern Caribbean tourism
Theorising Caribbean tourism
Tourist imagery
The world’s biggest industry
• In 1994, tourism became the world’s biggest
industry (overtaking petroleum and motor
vehicles)
• By 2014, tourism accounted for almost 10% of
global GDP and 9% of employment
• Tourism is ‘a force that arises from, and gives
rise to, geographical unevenness and social
inequality’ (Mullins, 2004, p. 97)
• Tourism is one of the Caribbean region’s only
‘comparative advantages’ in the globalising,
neo-liberal world
Tourism in the Caribbean
• Tourism accounts for 14% of the GDP of
the Caribbean and 11.3% of employment
(60% in the Bahamas and Antigua, less
than 10% in Trinidad and Tobago)
• Number-one earner of foreign currency
• Region receives only 2.4% of world’s
tourists (25 million visitors in 2012)
• 50% come from USA and 25% from
Europe
Caribbean tourism
The [tourist] industry hinges on the exploitation of a number
of the region’s resources, particularly sun, sea and sand,
but also on its tropical rainforests and coral reefs as well as
its music, such as reggae and calypso, its cuisine, and
other cultural symbols such as carnival. It offers a variety
of packages, including golf vacations, weddings and
honeymoons, dive trips, and eco-tours, its sole raison
d’être to provide pleasure to the visitor…Male and female
labor (sic) and energies constitute a part of the package
that is paid for and consumed by the tourist during the
period in which she or he seeks to relax and enjoy – in the
leisure time the tourist has set aside to recuperate and
restore the mind and body in order to maintain a healthy
and productive working life on returning home…
K. Kempadoo, Sun, sex, and gold (1999), pp 20-21.
The origins of Caribbean tourism
• First hotel built in region in 1778 (in Nevis)
• Throughout much of its history, the Caribbean
was a notoriously unhealthy region for visitors
due to malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever etc.
• Elite leisured travellers began to visit the region
in the mid-to-late 19th century for health reasons
• They travelled on new trans-Atlantic steamships
to ‘winter in the West Indies’
Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
The origins of Caribbean tourism
• First hotel built in region in 1778 (in Nevis)
• Throughout much of its history, the Caribbean
was a notoriously unhealthy region for visitors
due to malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever etc.
• Elite leisured travellers began to visit the region
in the mid-to-late 19th century for health reasons
• They travelled on new trans-Atlantic steamships
to ‘winter in the West Indies’
• Hotels were built to serve visitors (e.g. Royal
Victorian Hotel in the Bahamas opened in 1861)
Hotels
Hotels
The origins of Caribbean tourism
• First hotel built in region in 1778 (in Nevis)
• Throughout much of its history, the Caribbean
was a notoriously unhealthy region for visitors
due to malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever etc.
• Elite leisured travellers began to visit the region
in the mid-to-late 19th century for health reasons
• They travelled on new trans-Atlantic steamships
to ‘winter in the West Indies’
• Hotels were built to serve visitors (e.g. Royal
Victorian Hotel in the Bahamas opened in 1861)
• Larger-scale tourism developed first in Cuba
Tourism in Cuba
• Tourism developed in
Cuba in the early
twentieth century in the
context of the increasing
US military presence.
• Sex tourism was the
seedy side of Havana’s
club culture and the city
came to be known as the
commercial sex capital of
the western hemisphere
Tourism in Cuba
• Tourism expanded in Cuba following US
occupation (which saw large-scale mosquito
eradication and improvements in local
sanitation)
• Great War encouraged Americans to visit Cuba
• Prohibition in 1920s
• Tourism became Cuba’s third largest source of
foreign currency (after sugar and tobacco)
Visitor numbers to Cuba
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
1914
1924
1934
1944
1954
Tourism in Cuba
• Tourism expanded in Cuba following US
occupation (which saw large-scale mosquito
eradication and improvements in local
sanitation)
• Great War encouraged Americans to visit Cuba
• Prohibition in 1920s
• Tourism became Cuba’s third largest source of
foreign currency (after sugar and tobacco)
• Tourism virtually disappeared after 1959, which
created opportunities elsewhere in the
Caribbean
• Tourism enabled again after 1989 (2.5m in 2005
and 50% foreign exchange earnings)
Tourism in Jamaica
• Initial development in 1880s linked to growth of
banana trade (although there was already a
steamship service)
Tourism in Jamaica
• Initial development in 1880s linked to growth of
banana trade (although there was already a
steamship service)
• Titchfield Hotel constructed at Port Antonio in
early 1900s
Hotels
Tourism in Jamaica
• Initial development in 1880s linked to growth of
banana trade (although there was already a
steamship service)
• Titchfield Hotel constructed at Port Antonio in
early 1900s
• Tourist development in Jamaica was marked by
patterns that were later repeated across the
region:
– Support of government
– Capital for investment came from outside
– Fiscal incentives provided to foreign investors
Modern Caribbean tourism
• From the 1960s, ‘mass tourism’ began to develop across
the region, which reflected:
– Efforts by newly independent states sought to diversify their
economies
– Growth of international jet travel
• Many Caribbean governments provided incentives to
promote external investment and attract hotel
companies, tour operators and airlines. One
consequence was that tourism was soon dominated by
foreign interests.
• The mass tourism was not suited to the social realities of
the Caribbean, providing only seasonal employment and
few opportunities for career development.
• The requirements of hospitality did not sit easily in
newly-independent societies in which black nationalism
remained significant.
Tensions between tourism and
nationalism
THE LIFE YOU WISH YOU LED
The villas come equipped with gentle people
named Ivy or Maud or Malcolm who will cook,
tend, mend and launder for you. Who will ‘Mister
Peter, please’ you all day long, pamper you with
homemade coconut pie…weep when you leave.
Quoted in B. Mullins,
‘Caribbean tourism’ (2004), p. 102.
Caribbean cruises
• There has been a rapid
expansion of the cruise
ship industry, e.g. Antigua
(pop. of 91,295) had
522,342 cruise passenger
arrivals in 2014.
• Caribbean reduced to a
picturesque backdrop.
• Day-trippers contribute
little to local economies.
• Environmental problems
of ship waste disposal.
All-inclusive hotels
• ‘Cash-free’ vacation dominated by companies
such as Sandals and Superclubs.
• Today, ‘the all-inclusive concept has come to
symbolise the Caribbean tourism experience’
(Mullins, 2004, 107).
• A solution to tourist fears of crime and
harassment.
Private beaches
‘Friendly natives’
Mustique: The ultimate all-inclusive
• Mustique, a dependency
of St. Vincent was bought
by a foreign company,
Mustique Company Ltd in
1968.
• It is now a ‘secret
hideaway’ of the rich and
famous.
All-inclusive hotels
• ‘Cash-free’ vacation dominated by companies
such as Sandals and Superclubs.
• Today, ‘the all-inclusive concept has come to
symbolise the Caribbean tourism experience’
(Mullins, 2004, 107).
• A solution to tourist fears of crime and
harassment.
• Problems:
– Benefits to local economies is even more limited than
that of other hotels.
– Privatisation of beaches.
– Fuels local antagonism.
Theorising Caribbean tourism
•
‘Plantation tourism landscape’ model
(based on Antigua):
‘Plantation tourism landscape’
model
Theorising Caribbean tourism
•
‘Plantation tourism landscape’ model
(based on Antigua):
1. Pre-tourism (1632-1949) – agriculture
dominant
2. Transition (1950-1969)
3. Tourism dominant (1970 to present)
•
Emphasis on continuity, not change.
Tourism and the plantation system
[S]imilarities include the dominant role of
expatriate investment capital as well as ownership
and management, the seasonal nature of
employment, the need for a large component of
unskilled local labour, the reliance upon a narrow
range of markets, and the responsiveness of each
activity to external rather than local needs.
David Weaver, ‘The evolution of a “plantation”
tourism landscape’ (1988), p. 320.
Theorising Caribbean tourism
•
‘Plantation tourism landscape’ model
(based on Antigua):
1. Pre-tourism (1632-1949) – agriculture
dominant
2. Transition (1950-1969)
3. Tourism dominant (1970 to present)
•
•
Emphasis on continuity, not change.
Such critical assessments of tourism
often draw on dependency theory.
Selling the image of the Caribbean
The natural tropical island environment with some
of the world’s most beautiful beaches is an idyllic
setting for a vacation, and so tourism has become
a significant industry in the Caribbean.
T. Boswell (2003), in Hillman and D’Agostino (eds)
Understanding the contemporary Caribbean, p. 47.
BUT, there is nothing ‘natural’ about such desires
– they have a history to them.
An idyllic setting for a vacation
‘America’ (c. 1600):
Paradise on earth
Edenism and hedonism
Caribbean tourism is vested in the branding and marketing
of Paradise…[S]uch imagery picks up longstanding visual
and literary themes in European representations of
Caribbean landscapes as microcosms of earthly paradise –
including the temptation and corruption that go along with
being in new Edens. These discursive formations of
Caribbean scenery are closely related to the emergence of
‘hedonism’ as a key set of practices associated with
Caribbean tourism. Depictions of Caribbean
‘Edenism’…underwrite performances of touristic ‘hedonism’
by naturalising the region’s landscape and its inhabitants
as avatars of primitivism, luxuriant corruption, sensual
stimulation, ease and availability.
M. Sheller, ‘Natural hedonism’ (2004), p. 23.
Tourist imagery
• Contemporary tourist discourse is embedded in
a long history of Western ideas about the
Caribbean. Elements include:
– Oldest notions of the region as a luxuriant paradise.
– Ideas of the Caribbean as available (for intervention
and pleasure).
‘America’ (c. 1600):
Paradise on earth
Tourist imagery
• Contemporary tourist discourse is embedded in
a long history of Western ideas about the
Caribbean. Elements include:
– Oldest notions of the region as a luxuriant paradise.
– Ideas of the Caribbean as available (for intervention
and pleasure).
– After the abolition of slavery, the Caribbean became
reinscribed as a natural landscape (rather than a
productive, developed landscape). This reflected its
declining economic importance and the continuing
influence of Romanticism (a cultural shift in European
thought that valued wild and untamed landscapes).
Pre-abolition: The Caribbean represented as
a productive, developed landscape
Tourist imagery
• Contemporary tourist discourse is embedded in
a long history of Western ideas about the
Caribbean. Elements include:
– Oldest notions of the region as a luxuriant paradise.
– Ideas of the Caribbean as available (for intervention
and pleasure).
– After the abolition of slavery, the Caribbean became
reinscribed as a natural landscape (rather than a
productive, developed landscape). This reflected its
declining economic importance and the continuing
influence of Romanticism (a cultural shift in European
thought that valued wild and untamed landscapes).
Tourist imagery
• Contemporary tourist discourse is embedded in
a long history of Western ideas about the
Caribbean. Elements include:
– Oldest notions of the region as a luxuriant paradise.
– Ideas of the Caribbean as available (for intervention
and pleasure).
– After the abolition of slavery, the Caribbean became
reinscribed as a natural landscape (rather than a
productive, developed landscape). This reflected its
declining economic importance and the continuing
influence of Romanticism (a cultural shift in European
thought that valued wild and untamed landscapes).
• Mimi Sheller (2004) describes this discourse as
‘Edenism’.
Edenism and hedonism
Caribbean tourism is vested in the branding and marketing
of Paradise…[S]uch imagery picks up longstanding visual
and literary themes in European representations of
Caribbean landscapes as microcosms of earthly paradise –
including the temptation and corruption that go along with
being in new Edens. These discursive formations of
Caribbean scenery are closely related to the emergence of
‘hedonism’ as a key set of practices associated with
Caribbean tourism. Depictions of Caribbean
‘Edenism’…underwrite performances of touristic ‘hedonism’
by naturalising the region’s landscape and its inhabitants
as avatars of primitivism, luxuriant corruption, sensual
stimulation, ease and availability.
M. Sheller, ‘Natural hedonism’ (2004), p. 23.