Can all-inclusive tourism be pro-poor?

A key aspect of pro-poor tourism is creating and - more importantly - maintaining employment opportunities for poor communities. All-inclusive tourism businesses and large hotels can provide jobs in developing countries. As such, they have a potentially important role in pro-poor tourism.

Research from the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Germany, examined the economic welfare of employees in all-inclusive resorts and large hotels in Jamaica, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The research compared employees' current wages to their former wages and examined the wider socio-economic impacts of all-inclusive resorts.

Sandals resorts, Jamaica

Two resorts owned by Sandals in Negril, Jamaica, showed the most positive practices, including:

• Local employment: up to 99 percent of permanent employees are local (approximately 780 people).
• Secure income: half of the interviewees had worked for Sandals for between 3 to 12 years.
• Career options: foreign language courses abroad were the career advantage most often cited by interviewees.
• Staff development: each Sandals employee receives extensive training, including HIV prevention, customer service and environmental awareness.

Most interviewees stated that working at Sandals enabled them to support not only their immediate family but also members of their extended family. Furthermore, the Sandals salary scheme includes health insurance, a pension scheme and life insurance. This is a significant improvement on former occupations in other hotels and the restaurant and entertainment sector.

Contributions to the local economy

The Sandals Small Farmers' Programme co-operatives in Jamaica and St. Lucia, which started in 1998, now purchase more than 50 percent of fruit and vegetables from local suppliers. Other large tourism businesses could follow Sandal's pro-poor policies by:

• developing a stronger focus on local linkages in business activities
• ensuring that their activities make a financial contribution to local communities and the local economy
• offer all employees a human resources policy that provides security, consistent training and career opportunities.

Susy Karammel
Tourism Consultant, Rigaer Str. 100, 10247 Berlin, Germany
T +49 (0)30 420 29 247
SAI@gtz.de or susy.karammel@arcor.de

Klaus Lengefeld
GTZ - German Technical Cooperation, Dag-Hammarskjšld-Weg 1-5, 65726 Eschborn, Germany
T +49 (0)6196 79 2471
F +49 (0)6196 79 7289
Klaus.Lengefeld@gtz.de
www.gtz.de/en

Views expressed on these pages are not necessarily those of DFID, IDS, id21 or other contributing institutions. Copyright remains with the original authors but (unless stated otherwise) any article may be copied or quoted without restriction, provided both source (id21, insights) and authors are properly acknowledged and informed. Copyright © 2006 id21. All rights reserved.