IS EMIL LEE LIVING ON PLANET EARTH? IN THE AGE OF CATACLYSMIC GLOBAL CHANGES, TERRORISM, MASS MIGRATION, MARIJUANA LEGALISATION ET AL CAN TOURISM BE DEPENDED ON TO SUSTAIN CARIBBEAN ECONOMIES?

“Cuba catalyst for sustainable regional marketing campaign!”.

The above headline jumped out at me in the Friday issue of July 17^th, 2015 in the Today Newspaper. Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) President Emil Lee is the brainchild of the above quote. His statements were in reference to CHTA’s so called “Cuba White Paper”. The paper called Cuba: The Great Disruption for the Good of the Caribbean. The article claims that the paper has generated, a “huge” amount of interest in newspapers and trade journals in the US, without referencing even one instance of such, or providing a quote from one of the mediums, that has supposedly shown interest in Lee’s claims. On the heel of Carnival Cruises announcing that it had received permission from the US government, to begin cruises between the US and Cuba. The CHTA claims that, the cruise lines Cuba plans will adversely affect some current cruise destinations. Lee claims that: “tourism presents the fastest opportunity to help mitigate the challenges of unemployment and revenue which face many Caribbean islands”. Lee and his ilk conveniently forget that the Caribbean adopted tourism as its preferred economic vehicle for over 40 years, and it has yet to prove a cure for the myriad maladies that threaten the region. Lee further stated: “We expect that Caricom adopting an aggressive tourism platform would serve as an impetus for the greater Caribbean nations to embrace tourism as the key to employment for each nation’ citizens and the launch of cruise vacations between the US and Cuba should serve as a catalyst to get our governments to finally fund a sustainable regional marketing campaign to elevate the image of all countries in the Caribbean to compete globally”, Lee stated. Lee laid out a “six pillar plan”, in his white paper, using 1980’s Reaganomics language such as Caribbean basin initiative, which he simply interspersed with tourism, making it a Caribbean basin tourism initiative, Lee is the Princess Heights manager and possibly the owner of said establishment (Lee is a Chinese with a Dutch passport a member of the elite merchant class). Emil Lee has of course a vested personal interest in seeing, the present tourism model “sustained”. Lee and his ilk can and will flee to their gated communities in Miami and elsewhere in the US, when their voodoo economic model, that they are trying to create is destroyed. There are several pertinent facts that they fail, to seriously consider. We are living in the age of unprecedented global migration on a massive scale, which is taxing governments beyond their capacities to contain; examples are the current humanitarian crisis in the DR. Climate change is another factor not being considered by the likes of Lee and his ilk. Terrorism and natural disasters such as hurricanes and Tsunamis have and will continue to shape tourism for now and well into the foreseeable future. Tourist’s as was recently demonstrated in the terrorist attacks in Kuwait and the attack on the beach in Tunisia, will have to for their own safety leave the “tourist destination” i.e. product for their home countries simply as a self preserving measure. Terrorism has taken on a pronounced globalized character, the Caribbean has seen according to the regional and international news mediums, over one hundred of its citizens fighting in Iraq and Syria as members of the super terrorist movement the Islamic State better known as Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (Syria) aka ISIS. Many of those who have not died in fighting in Syria and Iraq will return to the region. As a result of the geo-political character of today’s world, terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda have also adapted to our present geo-political realities, sine 70% of the tourist’s coming to the Caribbean and particularly Sint Maarten are US citizens, then it follows that Sint Maarten is a possible staging ground for a worst case scenario terrorist attack. Sint Mararten as a tourist destination in the present geopolitical reality cannot ensure the protection of the tourist’s nor its citizens in the event of a terrorist operation on its soil. Given the present grave situation, the Caribbean will of necessity return to agricultural production, along with intra-regional trade and eco-tourism developed, with a “cultural preservation” character, simply as a means of surviving in the 21^st century. The tourism model that Lee is advocating is no longer viable and will soon cease to exist, given the realities described previously. Agri-tourism, cultural tourism, human potential development are the way to the future regionally, simply depending on a “one pillar”, economic model based solely on tourism is doomed to fail.