Behind the Smile, Second Edition

George Gmelch

Description

A workers'-eye view of Caribbean tourism

Behind the Smile is an inside look at the world of Caribbean tourism as seen through the lives of the men and women in the tourist industry in Barbados. The workers represent every level of tourism, from maid to hotel manager, beach gigolo to taxi driver, red cap to diving instructor. These highly personal accounts offer insight into complex questions surrounding tourism: how race shapes interactions between tourists and workers, how tourists may become agents of cultural change, the meaning of sexual encounters between locals and tourists, and the real economic and ecological costs of development through tourism. This updated edition updates the text and includes several new narratives and a new chapter about American students' experiences during summer field school and home stays in Barbados.

Preface
1. Island Tourism
2. Work and Encounters in Tourism
3. The Airport
Redcap Wendy Husbands
Teller and Money Exchanger Joyann Springer
4. The Hotel
Taxi Driver Trevor Mapp
Bartender Sylvan Alleyne
Guest Services Director Marilyn Cooper
Room Attendant (Maid) Sheralyn O'Neale
Security Errol Sobers
Chef Malcolm Bovell
Manager Martin Barrow
5. The Beach
Beach Vendor Rosco Roach
Hotel Water Sports Zerphyl Greaves
Jet-Ski Operator Ricky Hinds
Dive Shop Brian Rock
6. The Attractions
Cruise-Ship Shore Excursions Rosie Hartmann
Island Bus Tours Anderson Hughes
Co-Pilot, Atlantis Submarines Michael Walcott
Tour Guide, Harrison's Cave Malika Marshall
Captain, Jolly Roger Pirate Cruises Dwayne Parry
Owner-Operator, Cycling Tours Robert Quintyne
7. The Research and Promotion of Tourism
Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association Colin Jordan
Chief Research Officer, Ministry of Tourism Everton Gill
8. Conclusion
Epilogue: Student Encounters with Tourists and Tourism
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• América del Sur
• Sociology
• Travel writing
• Social sciences
• South America
• Latin America
• Anthropology
• Caribbean
• Social
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 21 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253001290
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BEHIND THE SMILE
THE WORKING LIVES OF CARIBBEAN TOURISM
SECOND EDITION
GEORGE GMELCH

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931
© 2012 by George Gmelch
All rights reserved. First edition 2003.
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gmelch, George.   Behind the smile : the working lives of caribbean tourism / George Gmelch. —2nd ed.       p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-253-00123-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) —   ISBN 978-0-253-00129-0 (electronic book) 1. Tourism—Caribbean Area—Anecdotes. 2. Tourism—Caribbean Area—Employees—Anecdotes. I. Title.   G155.C35G63 2012   331.7'619172981—dc23
2011042309
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
 
To Ermine Greaves, Jerry Handler, Susan Mahon, Marcus O'Neale, and Janice Whittle, who contributed so much to my Bajan education over the years
CONTENTS
Preface
Preface to the Second Edition
1 Island Tourism
2 Work and Encounters in Tourism
3 The Airport
Redcap | Wendy Husbands
Teller and Money Exchanger | Joyann Springer
4 The Hotel
Taxi Driver | Trevor Mapp
Bartender | Sylvan Alleyne
Guest Services Director | Marilyn Cooper
Room Attendant (Maid) | Sheralyn O'Neale
Security | Errol Sobers
Chef | Malcolm Bovell
Manager | Martin Barrow
5 The Beach
Beach Vendor | Rosco Roach
Hotel Water Sports | Zerphyl Greaves
Jet-Ski Operator | Ricky Hinds
Dive Shop | Brian Rock
6 The Attractions
Cruise-Ship Shore Excursions | Rosie Hartmann
Island Bus Tours | Anderson Hughes
Co-Pilot, Atlantis Submarines | Michael Walcott
Tour Guide, Harrison's Cave | Malika Marshall
Captain, Jolly Roger Pirate Cruises | Dwayne Parry
Owner-Operator, Cycling Tours | Robert Quintyne
7 The Research and Promotion of Tourism
Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association | Colin Jordan
Chief Research Officer, Ministry of Tourism | Everton Gill
8 Conclusion
Epilogue: Student Encounters with Tourists and Tourism
 
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments for the Second Edition
Bibliography
Index
Preface
When people talk about tourism, they usually talk about their own holiday experiences and the places they have seen. Rarely do they consider the people who serve them and make their vacations possible. Behind the Smile is an inside look at the world of Caribbean tourism—specifically Barbados—as seen through the working lives of twenty-one men and women. The workers come from every level of tourism, from maid to hotel manager, gigolo to taxi driver, redcap to diving instructor. Their stories reveal the work of tourism and the encounters between “hosts” and “guests,” as workers and tourists are known in both the travel industry and academe.
The tourism dealt with in this book involves travelers from the most developed parts of the world who are vacationing in an economically less developed region—the Eastern Caribbean. In Barbados, the guests are primarily British, American, and Canadian. Through interviews with the tourism workers, we learn how they interact with the visitors and what they think of them—of their affluent lifestyles, their moral character, and the manner in which they pursue leisure. We learn what they admire about them and what they shun. We discover the generalizations or stereotypes they make about nationality and gender. Do women on vacation complain more than men? Americans more than Europeans? Are Canadians cheaper than all others? Are Americans less curious? Brits more prejudiced? We also hear how Barbadians assess the costs and benefits of international tourism for their island and society.
My interest in tourism evolved slowly over a two-decade span of research and teaching in the Caribbean. Initially I went to Barbados in 1982 to study emigrants who had returned home after spending many years living abroad in England and North America. I was interested in comparing the experiences of Barbadian returnees with the return migrants I had studied earlier in Ireland and Newfoundland (Gmelch 1992a). Since then my wife, Sharon Bohn Gmelch, and I have taken groups of anthropology students to Barbados every other year on field-training programs (see Gmelch 1992b). By merely living in Barbados, a small island, we were routinely exposed to tourism. Many residents of the villages where we lived worked in tourism. Most afternoons, we took a break from our village life and went to a large resort near Speightstown to swim and walk on the beach. Although I hated being identified as a tourist myself, I enjoyed observing and talking to visitors and the staff at the resort. When friends from home visited us in Barbados, we became real tourists as we took them around to see the “sights.” But it wasn't until we collaborated on a study of culture change in rural Barbados that I developed a scholarly interest in tourism. In The Parish Behind God's Back: The Changing Culture of Rural Barbados , Sharon Gmelch and I wrote briefly about tourism as an agent of change. Doing that research piqued my interest in the lives of my village friends who worked in the “industry,” and eventually led to the interviews for this book. I hoped that interviews with these individuals, edited into narratives of their working lives, would be an effective way to get an insider's view of the work of tourism and its impact on individuals. As several scholars have noted (Crick 1989; Stronza 2001), a major shortcoming in the literature on tourism has been the lack of local voice. I hope this work will be a step toward filling that void.
The twenty-one narratives in this book are divided into four primary sections that reflect the different settings and workplaces in Caribbean tourism—airport, hotel, beach, and the attractions. A fifth section looks at the government's effort to collect information on tourism and a trade association's efforts to promote it. Each section is introduced with a brief history or description of the setting.
Preface to the Second Edition
The research for the first edition of Behind the Smile was conducted between 1998 and 2000. A decade later, in the summer of 2010, I returned to Barbados to see how tourism had changed, if at all. Despite the global recession (2008–2010), which reduced the numbers of visitors to Barbados, tourism remains essential to the economic well-being of Barbados. Returning to Barbados gave me an opportunity to catch up with many of the people whose narratives are included here. For those I was able to locate I have added short epilogues. I have also added two new narratives, that of Rosie Hartmann, who offers a colorful description of her life and work organizing excursions for cruise ship passengers and locals, and Colin Jordan, who as president of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) describes his work trying to educate Barbadians about the importance of tourism to the country. This new edition also includes a description of the tourists who visit Barbados, thus addressing an unfortunate omission in the first edition, and an epilogue describing my field school students' encounters with tourists and tourism.
BEHIND THE SMILE

The Caribbean.

Barbados with parish boundaries identified.
1    ISLAND TOURISM
Tourism is travel dedicated to pleasure. Although the Oxford English Dictionary dates the term's first appearance in print to 1811, the concept of traveling for leisure dates back several thousand years to the ancient Greeks and later the Romans, whose elites traveled to exotic places around the Mediterranean. The Romans used the Isle of Capri as a holiday destination in what may be the earliest example of island tourism.
Some scholars argue that most early travel was unrelated to leisure; rather, it was aimed at satisfying other needs, such as pursuing opportunities for trade and commerce or seeking spiritual relief in making pilgrimages to sacred sites. 1 Perhaps. But there can be little doubt that for many early travelers, such as Greeks and Romans visiting thermal baths, there was often a large element of leisure associated with the trip. We must not fall into the trap of believing that travelers always have a single motive. Even my academic colleagues manage to do some sight-seeing while on trips to attend professional conferences.
Thomas Cook and the Package Tour
British entrepreneur Thomas Cook is often credited with having started the modern-day organized tour. First a missionary and later an active temperance worker, Cook chartered a special train to carry passengers the 17 miles from Leicester to Lo