The All-Inclusive Caribbean Vacation: Hospitality-Tourism or Neocolonialism?

The All-Inclusive Caribbean
Vacation: Hospitality-Tourism or
Neocolonialism?

Perry Douglas
September 14, 2019

Like many immigrants from the Caribbean, wishing to show their children their homeland, I spent my fair share of time at all-inclusive resorts on several different Caribbean islands.

One of my most vivid memories was observing the tourists as they watched the hotel’s ‘cultural shows’ where Grenadian dancers performed typical dances in traditional outfits that I had never seen outside of the resort! At the time it didn’t hit me that these performers were being trotted out to give visitors the illusion that they were experiencing authentic Grenadian culture. Now it is truly disheartening to think that foreigners would walk away believing they knew anything about our culture. Those dances in no way resembled Grenadian culture and were essentially made up to push a false narrative developed through the legacy of colonialism.

This example reveals one of the many unpalatable truths behind the all-inclusive: putting locals in positions of subservience; entertaining foreign guests for poor compensation and promoting false
narratives of the happy islander, content to entertain foreigners. This is the plantation legacy of colonialism, now replaced by neocolonialism, which is essentially the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries.

I’ve traveled the world and I cannot recall when being in Europe or America, ever having all my meals and activities in the hotel I stayed at. The objective of travel is to experience other cultures and “see the sights.” A good friend, who is an avid foodie, just returned from a two-week vacation in Croatia. His Instagram posts are full of shots of market places, small villages, restaurants, and coastline -- experiencing authentic Croatian culture and hospitality. With the Caribbean all-inclusive you experience none of that, in fact, you don’t experience culture what so ever. What you mainly experience is a bad food buffet, over crowed swimming pools and ridiculous nightly entertainment. Even the Pope recognizes that: “Holiday centres offer a reconstructed ethnicity that humiliates both
tourists and the host community.”

The Legacy of Colonialism

The Caribbean region, in general, has been independent of colonialism for decades, at that time their economies were dependent through the commodification of agricultural exports. Today close to 40% of the average Caribbean economies are tourism-based – this is what is suppose to sustain the region; however, sustainable tourism in the Caribbean has been elusive. The dominance of the all-inclusive has propagated a system designed for western resort owners to generate revenue, and export the profit. Similar to the wealth extraction of natural resources in the colonial period; hence, what has fundamentally changed?

Cultural critic Ian Gregory Strachan provokes the question in his vehement assessment of tourism, Paradise and Plantation, arguing that “the Caribbean finds itself again coveted for its natural resources – this time, though, not for gold, silver, pearls, tobacco, cotton, or sugar, but for sun, sand, and sea.” Although the region might have achieved political independence economic dependency is still firmly entrenched, through the structural mechanisms of a colonial past. Therefore, if tourism-hospitality is the largest economic sector and the all-inclusive model dominates it, those regional economies are nothing more than a source to extract wealth for foreign interests, whether through the extraction of sugar and cotton (colonialism) or foreign exchange through the tourism service sector
(neo-colonialism.)

This hard reality and challenges exacerbate dominance and dependence on large foreign corporations that own and operate many of the hospitality assets in the region. Included but not limited to hotels and resorts, villas, airlines, tour operators, cruise ships, travel agents, restaurants, service providers – this ecosystem controls those local economies. Creating diseconomies of scale and further contributing to negative investment in local communities; social exclusion occurs whereby on islands like Barbados it is not unusual to find “white only” nightclubs, local blacks know they are not welcome and can be denied entry. The lack of indigenous business owners and stakeholders in the tourism hospitality sector leads to environmental neglect and an absence of corporate social responsibility.

What the All-inclusive Really Represents

Caribbean tourism dependence on foreign influences similar to colonial plantation rule remains evident. “All-inclusive resorts have replaced plantations, hotels supplanted great houses, and taxis outnumber private drivers.”  Labour breakdown on racial lines – senior managers are white and workers are black in the service industry, which is part of the historical legacy of colonialism. Many
locals only labour opportunity is in the service industry, remaining stuck with no possibility of advancement. Jamaica Kincaid describes the Antiguan Hotel Training school as “a school that teaches Antiguans how to be good servants, how to be a good nobody.”

After independence, tourism was touted as the deliverer out of poverty towards economic sustainability and prosperity for the indigenous populations. However, for local people, this promoted narrative has not evolved into reality. Anthropologist George Gmelch describes how tourism fails to have a meaningful economic impact on the islands in his study of the working lives of Caribbean tourism, Behind The Smile. He explains how tourism’s effects are measured in “leakage” describing how “the real economic benefits of tourism to a country are not revealed by gross foreign exchange
earnings but by what is left over after deducting the amount which stays or returns overseas.” In the era of globalization and the increasing digitalization of the economies, combined with the rise of artificial intelligence technologies, the local workforce will continue to be marginalized and exploited. The all-inclusive vacation delivers negative impact contributions to local economies. The economic benefits to the local economies – profitability and wealth creation for local business owners and stakeholder, residents, and government tax collection is dramatically insignificant.

In 2019, and despite political independence many years ago, the legacy of slavery and the plantation system still invisibly underpins the Caribbean’s socio-economic structures. Nevertheless, there still exists a path forward -- allowing the region to take back control of its own cultural offerings, and to participate in the new global economy as equals, with mutual respect and dignity.

Stay tuned, the clear path forward is coming up.


Perry Douglas,
Entrepreneur, Innovator and
Believer in Social Responsibility, and the
Good in Progressive Capitalism