Cruiseshippers return when??

[Altamira]

By far and away the jewelry stores are owned by the cruise companies

Many are owned by the big companies, but there are still a lot of family owned businesses, all of which provide an income for their employees. Jewelry stores are only one example of businesses that could not be sustained by the dive industry. All tourist dollars are important to most Caribbean countries and other places in the world.

 

[DaveC]

When a destructive form of tourism is the major source of income for an island, it is time to rethink their economic structure.

 

[-Moe]

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where a cruise ship passenger would need to eject a condom overboard. Determining the provenance of trash can be difficult.

Never had your girl gripping a railing? Substitute balcony for cruise ship. Not that it justifies tossing a condom overboard but you asked for a scenario lol.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Many are owned by the big companies, but there are still a lot of family owned businesses, all of which provide an income for their employees. Jewelry stores are only one example of businesses that could not be sustained by the dive industry. All tourist dollars are important to most Caribbean countries and other places in the world.

How do you know this please?

 

[Doc]

Troll cruise ship thread, well then.

Roatan, right?

Reality on Roatan: A perfect example of owning it all, vertical marketing. “They” own the port and “straw market”, a happy-visitor zone they renamed from Dixon Cove to the melodious Mahogany Bay.

[Proof? The original port West of Coxen Hoke- it could have been updated. Why wasn’t it? Because it was owned by “the people”, but not “the right people”.]

IF a cruise shipper escapes Mahogany Bay, they are likely going to hit one of three attractions. Two of them are owned by the same group that owns Mahogany Bay.

(This provides a partial explanation of a “forever“ BOGO special over by Flipper Town)

Cruise ships have already performed their magic on the island of Roatan.

I got to Roatan in 1984. I have worked for their Government. I’m not thrilled, but I do understand how money changes everything.

I just accept it all- from the silt from illegal earthmoving on the reefs, the “accidental” garbage dump fires, the hideous diesel generators for all electricity, the crime rate & the disarmed civilian populace, the endemic corruption of government, top to bottom (the Tax accounting system, banking, cash accountability- c’mon...use your imagination). Ignoring the illegal clear cutting and burning of land, the illegal removal of mangroves en masse, turning a blind eye to the devastation caused by a cruise ship favorite- Little French Key.

Utila Is already being prepped, groomed, cultivated. It is well within the gunsights of big money. When it comes, Utila will be overwhelmed with hardly a whimper. And it will come.

After 36 years of intimate observation, I appreciate your concerns, your pain, your indignation, but you really have no idea.... buckets of money. Buckets.

The genie is long since out of the bottle....It is what we do.

 

[dmaziuk]

When a destructive form of tourism is the major source of income for an island, it is time to rethink their economic structure.

Right. Like a Columbian peasant growing coke for $10/lb needs to rethink his economic structure and grow coffee "fair traded" for $1/lb. Face it, the only "rethunk economic structure" that ever worked in this scenario is Jardines de la Reina and Unca Sam ain't gonna like it when it's Cuba.

 

[Altamira]

How do you know this please?

Because I have not travelled anywhere since the start of Covid issues, I do not know the current state of any businesses in the Caribbean or any other area. I used the jewelry business as an example of the impact of cruise ship tourism on countries because I have some expertise in that area. For the past 25 years, I have been a Graduate Gemologist, gem and jewelry appraiser, owned a gem and jewelry business, and managed two jewelry operations. That background has given me a deep interest in the domestic/international gem and jewelry industry/markets. Prior to the lockdown and three cancelled trips in 2020, I traveled a lot internationally, visiting as many jewelry stores as time permitted between diving opportunities, and the usual tourist activities. Since most of my international travel was by cruise ship, I picked up a pretty good feel for the impact of cruise ship tourism on the cruise line connected large shops as well as small, family owned, independent gem and jewelry stores across the world.

 

[ReefHound]

I haven't seen Roatan numbers but in Cozumel - about as scuba-centric as it gets - cruise pod revenue is many times that of land visitors. Even if most of that trickles back to the cruise ship owners it remains a major economic force.

My opinion is that cruise ships are negative in the long run but when you are extremely hungry you are not concerned about whether you will have food on the table next year. I would prefer to not see cruise ships return but since it will have no bearing on whether I get to have dinner it is really not my decision nor my business. The people - or at least the ones with the power there - are the only ones with any say in it.

 

[Doc]

When a destructive form of tourism,

Any travel to an otherwise isolated environment is by any definition destructive. It is a matter of degree.

Our mere presence is destructive. Hemp derived clothes from the Peterman Catalog and all. ECO Lodges, my fat Invasive ass.

is the major source of income for an island,

Read: the VISIBLE source of FAST income, meaning it is providing a viable path to acquisition of material wealth.

it is time to rethink their economic structure.

For who? Should “we” be rethinking “their” economic structure?

Should the noble savage’s subsistence lifestyle be preserved as a museum?

In 1986 I noticed the very first huge 2 meter satellite dishes on Roatan. Inside the shack selling beer, an old man rolled a cigarette. He sat on a rattan chair, rickety wooden table, floorboards allowed for circulation. A TV set in the corner announced, “this is CNN”

1986.

Hard to keep ‘em down on the farm once they’ve seen MTV.

 

[scrane]

Doc:
Well said.