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Luxury Cruise Controversy In Haiti: AJ English's Sebastian Walker Reports From Lambadee Beach

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Turborama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-24-10 11:19 PM
Original message
Luxury Cruise Controversy In Haiti: AJ English's Sebastian Walker Reports From Lambadee Beach
Edited on Sun Jan-24-10 11:35 PM by Turborama
 
Run time: 02:56
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcwOV1VCThQ
 
Posted on YouTube: January 24, 2010
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Posted on DU: January 25, 2010
By DU Member: Turborama
Views on DU: 1324
 
Cruise ships are bringing tourists to a private Haitian beach resort, which is less than 200km from the quake-hit capital Port-au-Prince.

The scene of comfort and joy, on an island where thousands of people have died or are in dire need of food, water and medicine, has provoked much controversy and concern.

However, many of the tourists and the cruise company have said that they are helping Haiti's economy by spending money in the Caribbean island.
(January 24, 2010)
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-24-10 11:27 PM
Response to Original message
1. When this first broke I had a very visceral reaction
but this is part of the recovery phase and bringing a sense of normality back.

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CoffeeCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-24-10 11:42 PM
Response to Original message
2. I have friends stopping at Lambadee on a cruise...
They are sailing on Royal Caribbean. My friend told me last night that they
were stopping in Lambadee. Apparently, this area is private and is owned by
the Royal Caribbean cruise line.

It really is a sad situation. I would feel horrible--knowing that I was relaxing
and dining just miles from utter devastation.

My friend said they move a huge buffet off of the ship, and place it at this stop
and the passengers eat there. I guess it's pretty elaborate, as they are feeding
thousands of passengers a big spread of decadent food.

I'm wondering how this would work from a security standpoint? Hatians are starving
and thirsty. Many are dying of starvation. If I had just endured a horrible
earthquake and had a few starving children in tow--and there was a grand buffet, full
of lobster, steak, desserts and everything in between--I'd head there!

I would be concerned that this poses all kinds of problems.

I just feel that stopping there is wrong--unless you're helping with the relief effort.
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Left Coast2020 Donating Member (597 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 12:38 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. I agree. I think we both feel the same way about
the potential arrogance this has. On one hand, you want to help their economy recover. On the other, you're not helping--directly, and thats where the emphasis should be--direct support. The company claims they are bringing supplies to help, but having tourists wade around like nothing happened does seem a tad-bit....snobish?

Perhaps Royal Caribbean should refrain from stopping there until things improve. Helping is a good thing. But at first glance, it does have a bad image stigma attached to it.
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 02:18 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. Ask yourself who works in the area
and that will be your answer. My guess is that the employees are Haitians who have extended family in the capital. I would sincerely hope that tourists spend freely on local crafts. While their money won't do much good now, it will definitely come in handy as people start to rebuild in the city.

Were I on such a cruise, I wouldn't stay aboard and sulk. I'd go ashore and pick up whatever was there that was made locally and probably reboard without a dime in my pocket.
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DirtyDawg Donating Member (594 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 09:25 AM
Response to Original message
5. How about if the passengers..
...voted to forego their eating anything - a brief hunger-strike for Haiti - for the day or two that they would be there with the understanding that the food they would have consumed would be packed and distributed. Of course with no refrigeration that may be an issue, but something could be distributed. As for the money they would spend ashore, take up a collection and donate it. Point being that regardless of how 'practical' reveling some 60 miles from 'the end of the world' may seem for a lot of people, it sucks in the extreme. Point being, figure out a way to 'do the good' without having to 'have a party' while doing it.
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peacetalksforall Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 09:47 AM
Response to Original message
6. I think I am for the stop, i.e. normalcy of income for the H. employees, but with conscienceness.
We can't assume that the passengers are aloof to the situation in thought or action.

Money spreads out.

Haiti is a few months away from the hurricane season and normal rains - they need roofs over their heads in the southern part. They need their tourist income

Yes, it's difficult to look at the contrasts. It's a sticky situation. It must be worse to be right there, but I think we should be glad that Royal Carib did not quit Haiti. Quitting that little piece of Haiti would leave a financial and psychological impact.

Tidbit: The tourism industry was once the number one industry in the world. We happen to have destroyed that industry through greed by introducing war and fear of flying - instilled as a propaganda effort to keep the military and contractor money coming so that the corporate interests in the area of the Middle Eastio are protected and secured.
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swilton Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 11:51 AM
Response to Original message
7. The 'helping the economy' myth
Until the major structures of capitalism change, 'helping the economy' does very little to help the middle and lower classes who actually need the help.

I agree with one of the other posts that the folks on the cruise lines should have donated their lavish buffets to the people of Haiti who actually need it. The people I saw in those photographs looked to me like they didn't really need any more feasts and it would have done their hearts good to lose a few of those pounds that they were putting on in Haiti.
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Turborama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 01:01 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. I wrote a paper on this
While studying Sustainable Tourism. It was one of the first things I wrote for the course, so please be gentle...

Sustainable Tourism Solutions

Can tourism current tourism development practices continue unabated, or are there alternatives that need to be looked into? Ecotourism and socially responsible travel are part of a growing trend called sustainable tourism. This alternative to mass tourism requires managing all resources so that social, economic, and aesthetic needs are met while simultaneously maintaining cultural integrity, fundamental ecological processes and biological diversity.

The motivations behind developing countries seeking to have a tourism industry are to earn money, attract foreign exchange and the creation of employment. Tourism can influence the development in developing countries by various different means. By looking at the financial multiplier effect of income generated by the tourist expenditure and leakage of tourist money, we can reach a better understanding of the processes that can make or break tourist destinations. We’ll also have a look at how the formal and informal tourism sectors variously affect these two different impacts on the host economies and a possible alternative to mass tourism, which incurs large leakage of money from the host country which in turn will hold back the development for some local communities.

As these revenues that developing nations strive to achieve through tourism enter the host country’s economy it re-circulates many times and results in a cumulative economic impact that is greater than the original amount of tourist expenditure and this is referred to as the multiplier effect. Multipliers are methods which attempt to measure the impact of tourist spending as it recirculates within the host countries economy. This spending is initially on payment for goods and services by tourists such as hotel accommodation, food, transport, and souvenirs; this is known as a direct effect. The indirect effect is when the provider of these services spends their cash received on wages, supplies, and taxes. The induced effect is further spending by the recipients of the direct and indirect effects on goods and services for their own use, for example rent and food bought by hotel employees.

Leakage refers to the purchase of imported goods and services by tourists and to the imports of services and supplies by hotels and other tourism businesses or organisations, such as expatriot staff, to the repatriation of profits by foreign owners of hotels and other services, and many other sources. The levels of such leakages are significant, and can be as high as 70%, because it reflects the economic power that Transnational Companies, which control the three main branches of the industry, hold in comparison with local communities and local governments. Through their centralized purchasing procedures which obstruct local managers from buying locally, for example. Such transnational corporations are:; hotel chains, airlines, travel agents/tour operators.

Often the reason for the requirement of and reliance on imported goods and staff is the inability of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors of some developing countries to guarantee the quality and supply of inputs to the tourist sector and staff. For example, highly trained and experienced chefs for five star hotels frequently have to be brought in from overseas.

Another reason “high quality" tourism, i.e. top end formal or mass tourism, can result in increased leakage in some cases, despite the higher income it may generate, is because it requires the provision of very high quality and high priced imported goods. A further reason mass/formal tourism could have higher potential for leakage in comparison to alternative/informal tourism is because the informal tourists tend to value and consume local resources as part of the tourism experience.

The problem with low leakage tourism is that it can also connect to low income tourism which would result in lower total income for the economy. It is therefore necessary for the host country to try to define a leakage break-even point and then to choose the type most suitable for their potential destination. Whatever the decision, the fact remains that, for any destination, the greater the leakage, the smaller the multiplier effect.

There appears to be a need to formulate an alternative strategy of tourism development in developing countries so that the dependency on the developed countries does not continue to result in the subordination of national economic autonomy through the core-periphery relationship. This is sometimes a result of, in the absence of strong government control, international tourism organisations and transnational corporations developing and perpetuating a hierarchical element to tourism development which has also been described in some circles as “neo colonialism”.


To break this down, there are different types of tourists and different types of tourism suppliers which can be described as the formal and informal sectors.

The formal sector is characterised as having:
• International standard hotels (often offering 'all inclusive" holidays)
• High capital investment costs
• High leakage in the form of; profit transfers, imported food and construction materials
• Little integration into local economies

The informal sector consists mainly of:
• Hawkers and street vendors
• Bemo/ojek/rickshaw operators
• Small locally owned accommodation, bars and restaurants
• Local markets and shops

The two of these sectors often interact but the formal sector is closely related to mass tourism. Each entity in the informal sector is conducted with very limited capital and is labour intensive, yet produces high profits and increase the multiplier effect for the economy. Although there seems to be a lot of benefit to be gained from encouraging the informal sector, it appears that tourism plans in developing countries often either ignore it entirely or try to eliminate the participation of the informal sector in satisfying the needs of tourists and often only consider the path of formal tourism development. This is typically because of the government of the host country's confidence in neoliberalism, market led growth and economic liberalisation, and, more specifically, the encouragement of foreign investment.

However, there are possible solutions to leakage problems. These include integrating the local communities and promoting ‘alternative tourism’ (AT). Alternative tourism is a form of tourism that advocates an approach which is opposite, or an alternative, to mass tourism. The philosophy behind encouraging alternative tourism is to not concentrate on “economic and technical” necessities alone, although they are very important, but to also consider and emphasise the demand for an unspoiled environment and consideration of the needs of local people. Alternative tourism can be defined as a generic term that includes a whole range of tourism prefixes such as eco-, independent, responsible, green, backpacker and so forth. All of which profess to offer a more benign alternative to conventional mass tourism, or formal tourism, in certain types of destinations.

Below are six alternatives to formal/mass tourism which could be used by the host state and communities to take advantage of AT and help to minimise the leakage of tourism revenue and increase the multiplier effect.

These are:

• Large-scale tourism enterprises owned and controlled by the state
• Large-scale tourism enterprises owned and controlled by national private capital
• Medium-scale tourism enterprises controlled by local companies and individuals
• Small and medium scale tourism enterprises organised as co-operatives at the village or community level
• Small-scale tourism enterprises organised as individual or family concerns
• Organised by individuals and families as a supplement to simple commodity production.


A good example of how Small-scale tourism enterprises in the informal sector can work to the benefit of local communities is to look at ‘homestays’ or ‘losmen’ in Bali. They require a relatively low initial capital outlay and this type of business is potentially accessible to any family with a spare room, or the space to build one, for small rooms and the lack of hot water (although this is less common now, as most losmen have hot water) is generally acceptable to the existing clientèle (mainly backpackers). Another alternative, encouraged by the tourism planners in Bali, is for local owners to lease instead of selling their land to Developers.



Five ways that Alternative Tourism can satisfy the needs of the tourists, local people and the resource base in a “complementary rather than a competitive manner” and are therefore benefitial to all concerned:

1 There will be benefits for the individual or family: accommodation based in local homes will channel revenue directly to families. In addition, families will acquire managerial skills.
2 The local community will benefit; AT will generate direct revenue for community members, in addition to upgrading housing standards while avoiding huge public infrastructure expenses.
3 For the host country, AT will help avoid the leakage of tourism revenue outside the country. AT will also help prevent social tensions and may preserve local traditions.
4 For those in the industrialised generating country, AT is ideal for cost conscious travellers or for people who prefer close contacts with locals.
5 There will be benefits for international relations; AT may promote international-interregional-intercultural understanding.


There will always be a demand for mass tourism, because some people would prefer to focus on relaxing and having a good time ‘away from it all’ and not have to worry about arranging their itinerary, stay in accommodation that offers reasonable and sometimes considerable comfort and would rather hang out on the beach or bars rather than have to spend their time trying to achieve these goals. As this cannot be replaced by alternative tourism, it is better to consider reforming the worst aspects of mass tourism by looking at what alternative tourism has to offer. Even though sustainable tourism is not always perfect, it can make a difference, especially when tourism is becoming the largest industry in the world. At least, it can be available to the host communities to help them decide what kind of development they want to pursue. There is no such thing as zero impact tourism and many countries that promote and encourage mass tourism will not phase it out because there are now too many stake holders. Alternative tourism can be a solution to some of the problems created by mass tourism, if it is set up and managed carefully, instead of a replacement for mass tourism; they can and should learn from each other.


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swilton Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 02:43 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Thank you for the benefit of your research Turborama
As you point out there are different kinds of tourism and tour lines. In this case of the cruise lines shown here, I would venture to guess that the lines are not Haitian or locally owned or operated.

Your explanation also doesn't address what roles the local populations play in the decision making of whether or not to accept or reject the tourism.

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FailureToCommunicate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-25-10 02:34 PM
Response to Original message
9. For crying out loud, this isn't about the 'big picture' or tourism! This is about helping
out in a clearly emergency situation. If the company Royal Caribbean wasn't smart enough to "do the right thing" and open up its food and supplies for the nearby victims, then the passengers sure should have organized and demanded it. Skipping some meals looks like it would be good for most of the tourist pictured.

For heaven's sake, all those bottles of clean water, towels, clothing, medical supplies, AND food RIGHT THERE on the ocean liner and they don't help out and share??!?

Maybe later when the tourists go back to reading their bibles and get to the parts where sharing what ever you have with those in need right in front of you, will cause them to say "Oh, is THAT what that part means?"

Or not.
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cberman Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-26-10 10:43 AM
Response to Reply #9
11. Are you a Republican in disguise? I have to know!!!!
I was a passenger on the Solstice. Here are the facts you seem to have overlooked (Hmmm. Forming opinions without bothering to gather all the facts. How very Republican of you):

1.) Royal Caribbean (RCCL) donated $1 million dollars to Haiti.
2.) RCCL organized a donation program on board the ship. There were 2,300 passengers. Average donation was $50.00 per person. (Approx. $115,000.00)
3.) Before we were allowed to disembark in Haiti, we all watched as RCCL offloaded pallets of food, water, and medical supplies onto forklifts. There were 5 tractors, each pulling a train of 6 flatbed cars, and these cars were packed with supplies the ship donated to the people of Haiti.
4.) There was no “lavish buffet” on the island. There was a small, casual beach BBQ. The food was open to all the Haitians working on the island.
5.) Royal Caribbean offered to divert the ship to a different island and the Haitian Government and Tourism Minister begged RCCL to please stop at Haiti as scheduled. Perhaps they were interested in our fixed port fee amounts, which were $25.00 per person ($57,500.00 straight to the Haitian Government.)
6.) The Haitians who were lucky enough to work on Labadee and not in Port-au-Prince were anxiously awaiting our arrival so they could earn money to send to their families and friends. I talked to them. I listened to them. And the tourists from the ship DID spend freely. My husband and I bought trinkets we didn’t want and will never use, just to help out the vendors. And we intentionally overpaid for everything we purchased.
7.) There is something to be said for allowing the Haitians to live some level of a normal life in the wake of a tragedy. A day of work in an area that was undamaged by the earthquake was, to some, a welcome break. Also, not everyone wants unbridled charity. There are prideful people out there who enjoy work and who want to feel like they’re earning at least some of what they’re getting. It makes them feel less helpless, and it makes them feel like they’re doing something to help their country recover.
8.) Philosophically, how much of an area is off-limits after a disaster? Is it based on country? If there is a tragedy in the United States, do we shut down all recreation in our nation? Did we chastise families vacationing in Disney World in the weeks following the U.S. disasters of 9/11 or Katrina? Or is it not based on country but rather on mileage? Is the 100 mile proximity of Labadee to Port-au-Prince the issue? Was a vacation to Disney World after Katrina insensitive, while vacations to Las Vegas or Honolulu after Katrina were considered much more ethical? Do we get on message boards every day to criticize people who travel to India or to the continent of Africa when we know the amount of people suffering in these places far exceeds the number of people suffering on the small island of Haiti?
9.) Arthur Applbaum, a Harvard University professor of ethics and public policy, said that while it shows "moral sensitivity to be disturbed by the thought that one is vacationing on the beach when others are suffering nearby ... it also shows insufficient moral reflection to think that proximity makes a moral difference."The people of Haiti are suffering whether you take your beach vacation in the Dominican Republic or in Hawaii," he said, "and it is a failure of the moral imagination not to be equally troubled in Waikiki."

I worry about people who sit at their computers and judge others. How much have you donated? How much have you physically done to help? Words are cheap. Anonymous criticism of society is even cheaper. The idea of halting travel to all places where there is suffering is laughable. We know there is suffering everywhere, everyday. But the world marches on, and people heal, and you really have to ask yourself if “polite” avoidance of suffering is really the most ethical choice. I would’ve criticized RCCL for NOT stopping in Labadee because that’s like not looking a handicapped person in the eye. And it’s like avoiding a person who’s just lost a loved one. It could be perceived as protecting one’s own comfort and avoiding one’s own guilt at the expense of the Haitian people who wanted (and needed) our tourist dollars. Maybe you need to take a cruise and relax a little. You’re sounding a bit…cantankerous. Especially when you accuse 2300 cruise passengers from all over the world of being fat, insensitive, Bible-readers. I am none of those things!
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projective Donating Member (20 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-26-10 10:43 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. very
morbid ,
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FailureToCommunicate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-26-10 09:28 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. I may well be "cantankerous" but you may well be a troll. Wow, join DU just to
Edited on Tue Jan-26-10 09:30 PM by FailureToCommunicate
eviscerate me in your post did you? Welcome to DU (I guess). Your defensive, accusatory, personal attack was at least well organized, and appeared factual and based on strong personal opinions - you'll fit right in here...

By the way, if "people who sit at their computers and judge people" worries you, or people that "form opinions before all the facts" seem wrong to you then maybe DU isn't the site for you. It can get messy here.

I appreciated that you provided some evidence that Royal Caribbean was doing some worthwhile outreach of money and materials. That certainly helps. You would have to agree from the video (which is what people were reacting to here) that it looked bad and sounded from the reporter being removed by security, that RCCL could have done more to show they were NOT callous to the nearby human catastrophe.

You were certainly correct about one thing: I COULD use a cruise! Alas I can not afford one.

Besides, there is plenty of Haiti relief organizing still to do: we're getting a statewide network of school groups formed for ongoing fund raising for Partners In Health (Haiti medical teams) that is based in our city.

Oh and no, I am not a Republican. However, I have known a few. (Hey, at least that is one thing I did not "accuse" about your fellow passengers)





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