Small accommodation development in the Caribbean: an appraisal.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION International tourism in less developed countries has long been a controversial issue. Some radical observers con sider tourism as another questionable expression of late industrial capitalistic lifestyles and, therefore, reject any tourism development in the Third World. Pragmatic voices counter that, for a number of developing coun tries, particularly many islands in the Caribbean, beau tiful beaches and a warm climate constitute ideal resources to generate significant economic and social de velopment. The controversy calls for considerable study. One type of tourism focuses on the impacts of tourism upon host societies, such as the following: the economic linkages with and leakages from the local or national economy, host-guest contacts, and other eco nomic, social, cultural, and environmental issues. The findings of this tourism research generally lead to recommendations on how tourism de velopment can be made to better correspond with overall national development goals. Most of these recommendations have never been im plemented because the host society?the destination?is only one element within the international tourism system. The distant market area from which clients originate is the second major element (Hills and Lundgren 1977). The intermediary function between the two is performed by airlines, tour operators, and hotel chains, which con stitute the major elements of the tourist industry. These are usually located in Europe and North America, and their micro-economic interests stand in sharp contrast to the wider societal concern of planning for the overall needs of the host society. To make matters worse, over the past 20 years these tourist interests have determined much of the tourism development in the tourist-receiving area (S. Britton 1982), while showing little consideration for the impact of their activities on the host societies. Of the numerous studies classified as destination-ori ented tourism research, only a few explicitly analyse the relationship between different sizes of accommodations and the impact of tourism (notable exceptions: Roden burg 1980; Belilse 1983). This neglect of the significance of accommodations comes as a surprise, because in the context of tourism in the Caribbean, accommodations constitute the single most important tourist service at the destination. Researchers focusing on accommodations specifically, and on the more general impact of tourism, have identified smaller accommodation units as more beneficial to the host community, and consequently have recommended that any further tourism development should pay greater attention to this alternative. Given the tendency of the international tourism system to overlook the needs of the host societies, it is understandable that these findings have been ignored. If destination-oriented tourism is to have greater influence, it needs to extend the scope of its analysis to the problems associated with small accommodations in the context of the entire international tourism system. The first part of this paper discusses the ownership structure and employment creation in three different ac commodation categories in Tobago. It is a brief, but typical, example of destination-oriented tourism re search. Data for this were collected during field work in 1980 (Haider 1982). The second part combines the author's own findings from Tobago with those of other researchers. The resulting summary of the advantages and disadvantages of small accommodation development serves as a catalyst for a further discussion of how the international tourism system and small ac commodation development can better coexist.