Engineering Paradise::Marketing the Dominican Republic's Last Frontier
Mass tourism development projects transform rural landscapes in profound ways. They alter how local populations historically use the land and sea, typically by shifting them away from subsistence agriculture and fishing, to low-end wages in tourist resorts and ancillary services. Development promise...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Science og Business Media, Inc.
2011
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/publications/engineering-paradise(15530f53-677a-4bc3-a9c6-8f0854fc3933).html https://doi.org/DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9920-4_70 https://pure.au.dk/ws/files/82112484/Engineering_Paradise_Marketing_DR.pdf |
| Summary: | Mass tourism development projects transform rural landscapes in profound ways. They alter how local populations historically use the land and sea, typically by shifting them away from subsistence agriculture and fishing, to low-end wages in tourist resorts and ancillary services. Development promises claim that new jobs will provide unskilled employment opportunities for local residents. However, residents often wind up living in un-serviced shantytowns. Even though some high-paying jobs become available, they are usually assigned to well-educated nationals from provincial or capital cities or even to foreigners. For low-skilled tourist workers, it is debatable whether or not living conditions and quality of life are actually improved by this form of economic development. A series of social problems appear, leaving governments to address how they will handle an inequitable distribution of wealth. This paper analyzes the most ambitious mass tourism complex undertaken in the Caribbean in the new millennium. Cap Cana, a joint venture between Dominican and international backers including the Wall Street tycoon Donald Trump, repre- sents a new blend of hybrid branding and life-style representation in its promotion of second-home and vacation destinations. We begin by framing mass tourism issues in the tropics and subtropics and then turn to a history of the eastern portion of the Dominican Republic. The case study of Cap Cana reveals a unique blend of brand- ing of recreational spaces that promotes a life-style approach to high-end tourism that resonates with the kind of place-promotion found in gated communities in the developed North Atlantic countries. |
|---|