Tourism anyone?

Today (September 27) is World Tourism Day, and tourist havens such as Barbados will no doubt be feeling proud to celebrate the things that tourism has allowed small countries to do. Not surpisingly, Barbados' local papers have flagged that the country has won several prizes recently for its tourism products. However, I am personally always in two minds about tourism. I welcome the opportunities for new and varied local jobs, higher pay, associated infrastructure developments such as roads, airports and sanitation, etc. I also welcome the opportunities for countries to exploit and showcase to visitors their culture, their environment, and other positive attributes. But there is always a delicate balance to hold and I also get concerned about the "negative" things that tourism can bring, with a faster pace of exposure to certain outside influences, which while common elsewhere are not necessarily in line with the Caribbean outlook. In that regard, I think of a certain willingness to exploit what seems to come once "foreigners with money" start to arrive.

In many senses, I have not found enough effort by those who run tourism authorities, and establishments that are key to tourism to fight some of these negatives. There are usually good measures in place to deal with many things that tourists fear, especially crime. In that regard, things have moved to a certain extreme by having tourists in "sealed environments". These can come in the form of "all inclusive" resorts, but they can also come in the form of highly secure tourist locations, where few locals can venture without serious checks. Other, lesser forms of harassment of tourists is commonplace but also more difficult to deal with. Whether it is the unwanted hair braider, or the drug peddler, or the taxi driver who takes a route that will ring up the costs, it does not matter. Here, I feel there have been fewer efforts to deal with the problems, often in defence of "letting the small people get a chance".

In Barbados, I think there is another issue. I think tourism has brought pressure on local prices (especially food) and I have a feeling (though hard to prove) that some have used the higher purchasing power of tourists to base prices higher than they should be. It may be useful for some of the local economists to try to analyse this impact of tourism. There appears to be much less insulation of tourism from some sensitive aspects of local life. And there may be a vicious circle. Because tourists have been tempted to live in villas and boutique hotels, rather than in large hotel complexes, they have moved more into buying local produce to deal with self-catering, or eaten out in local restaurants more than would have been the case. So, local merchants can charge more than they should for a reasonable profit, and because tourists are a significant part of the market and may be in some sense captive to these prices, the merchants will find that customers are not driven away. This phenomenon might have been going on for some time. Many people living here openly admit that they avoid shopping locally, and rarely frequent many of the restaurants for fear of the high prices. Instead, some people will fly abroad (to Miami, New York, Trinidad, Puerto Rico/US Virgin Islands) to stock up on non-perishables, and even certain kinds of perishables that are very expensive here, such as meat. A lot of talk has been heard over the past months about the high local prices, and the need to take care where one shops and what one buys. But that advice is really a bandage, and cannot make much real sense on a daily basis. Those who can travel to shop have taken this to heart. In fact, they have mounted a sort of boycott of local produce. If more people take the message to heart, it will be interesting to see how merchants and prices respond. For my part, I have kept eating out in restaurants to an absolute minimum over the past few months, and trying to find local places that offer great value. I too will be looking to stock up in a major way the next time I have chance to visit the US.