Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

partner, to purchase drugs, or to have sex.
■
In one out of every five cases the opportunity for the victimization was largely cre-
ated by the choices made by the victim. By their actions, tourists placed themselves
at a triple disadvantage of being a stranger, being isolated in an unfamiliar area,
and being there in search of some illicit action.
■
In numerous cases perpetrators used the desires of the victim for illicit action and
suggested that the perpetrator can help the victim to find it. After luring the victim
to an isolated location the robbery took place.
■
Finally, because the robbed tourist is a transient person who resides elsewhere, the
prosecution of the offenders is very difficult. By the time the case is brought to
court the victim/witness has returned home and is not likely to return to press the
prosecution. Thus the typical street robbery that involves out-of-town victims
rarely leads to prosecution.
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5
The Growth of the Caribbean
Narcoeconomy: Implications
for Tourism
Jerome L. McElroy
Learning Objectives
■
To understand the factors that make the Caribbean an ideal trafficking corridor.
■
To understand the macroeconomic problems that nourish drug trafficking.
■
To become aware of past research results about island crime patterns.
■
To appreciate the evidence on the spread of the narcoeconomy.
■
To understand the long-run implications of drug trafficking on tourism.
Introduction: Three Waves of Globalization
All these people, these diversities of cultures, have been concentrated in that archipelago. You
are very conscious of the ocean as a gateway out to other worlds. . . . Caribbean society was
perhaps the first global experiment in human history. (George Lamming in E. J. Waters, 1999,
p. 201)
The distinguishing feature of small island economies is their relative powerless-
ness in the global marketplace. They are so-called price takers and simulate the
behavior of the atomistic firm in the classical economist’s theoretical model of per-
fect competition. Their small size at the macro-social scale suggests that they are
ipso facto vulnerable to policy initiatives originating in core economies. This is
graphically illustrated by the profound impact which European imperialism, the
first wave of globalization, had on the insular Caribbean in the post-Columbian era
(Richardson, 1992). These external imprints include the stamp of dependent export
monoculture on island economy, that is, a high volume, low value added produc-
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tion structure geared to foreign demand in the global network of center periphery
trade. In addition, monoculture has had damaging effects on insular ecology and
biodiversity, and its demand for cheap slave labor resulted in the creation of multi-
ethnic societies of transplanted peoples. Unable to sustain population growth, the
post-emancipation period saw widespread livelihood mobility/migration that has
continued through the twentieth century. Since the 1950s the islands of the region
have struggled to reduce dependence and achieve political and economic
autonomy.
Although the Caribbean has experienced repeated rounds of externally
imposed laissez-faire capitalism (Klak, 1998), the second epochal wave of
globalization has been the sustained growth and worldwide spread of tourism
in the post–World War II era. International visitor arrivals have increased at a
robust rate above 5% per year since 1950 (Vellas and Becherel, 1995). Today
tourism is the world’s largest industry, accounting for over 10% of global
GDP and trade and 8% and 9% of world employment and new capital forma-
tion, respectively (WTTC, 2004a). In part, this growth has been facilitated by
the IMF–World Bank structural adjustment program favoring tourism as a
lucrative export strategy for debt-burdened less-developed countries (LDCs) to
improve loan repayment performance. 
Nowhere has this process been more visible than in the island periphery. In
addition to the pull of tourism opportunity, island decision makers have been
pushed to alter reliance on traditional staples because of falling terms of trade,
the dismantling of traditional colonial preferences, the worldwide expansion of
staple supply, and the development of synthetic substitutes in the North. In the
past generation, because of deliberate restructuring away from colonial crops
like sugar and copra, island economies have diversified toward tourism, related
construction, and offshore financial services. The intersection of this restruc-
turing with multinational hotel/airline investment, the advent of low-cost jet
travel, and the creation of aid-financed transport infrastructure has connected
northern demand with southern supply and created the so-called pleasure
periphery: the insular and coastal Mediterranean for Northern Europe, the
Caribbean islands for North America and Europe, and North Pacific (Hawaii,
Guam, Marianas) and the South Pacific for Japanese and other affluent Asian
travelers.
This internationalization has especially intensified in the small island
Caribbean where neoliberal free market policies favoring exports, deregulation,
foreign direct investment, and political stability have long dominated the politi-
cal economy (Gayle, 1998). As a result, the Caribbean has become the most
tourism-intensive region in the world. According to 2004 estimates, tourism
accounts for 15% of regional GDP and employment and roughly 20% of exports
and investment (WTTC, 2004b). Landscapes from the Bahamas to Aruba are vis-
ibly altered by the ubiquitous hotel and condominium clusters and connecting
road arteries, sun-hungry visitors, rental cars, and touring vans. Establishing the
infrastructure to support the mass tourism visitor industry has altered insular
coastlines and mountain faces, commercialized and quickened the once quiet
pace of island life, and damaged the operation of natural terrestrial-marine
weather and water buffering systems (McElroy and de Albuquerque, 1998). Such
widespread socioenvironmental changes have raised questions whether tourism
is a sustainable economic base, or just another short-run chapter in a long-period
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history of shifting export specializations and boom and bust economic and par-
allel demographic cycles.
Island tourism is also threatened by a third epochal wave encompassing the
globalization of organized crime in general and the international restructuring
of the production and distribution of illegal drugs (mainly cocaine and heroin)
in particular. According to Pearson and Payaslian (1999, p. 427), “while prior
to the 1960s the Italian and French ‘connections,’ extending from Palermo to
New York, were the primary networks for smuggling drugs, during the past
three decades Asian and Latin American drug production and smuggling have
emerged as major competitors.” This increasing cross-border traffic has led to
the dollarization of some hinterland South American producers, the alleged
decline of the Cosa Nostra in the United States, and, some argue, the increas-
ing informalization of the traditional financial sector through the growing
money laundering of drug profits. The spread of narco-trafficking across the
Caribbean has created a cocaine corridor from Aruba to the Bahamas that
threatens to overwhelm insular law enforcement and to destabilize the region’s
postwar economy. According to the West Indian Commission (1992, p. 343),
“Nothing poses greater threats to civil society in CARICOM countries than the
drug problem and nothing exemplifies the powerlessness of regional govern-
ments more.”
Scope
This chapter focuses on the geographic and institutional infiltration of the global
narcoeconomy across the insular Caribbean. It has six sections. The first reviews
patterns of serious crime in the region that suggest the escalating presence of narco
activity. The second presents some provisional new research. The third indirectly
links these phenomena to the expansion of the archipelago as a corridor for South-
to-North drug transit and money laundering and reviews the internal and external
forces that have nourished the growth of narcoeconomy. The fourth describes the
specific mechanics of the illicit trade routes and methods of conveyance through
the region, while the fifth discusses implications for tourism and related activities.
The conclusion broadly assesses the future.