Tourism development in the Dominican Republic: An examination of the economic impact to coastal households

Abstract

Coastal tourism projects are promoted in the Dominican Republic as national-level economic development initiatives that will create jobs for local residents, subsequently benefiting the households in these communities. However, the economic benefits of tourism can be severely weakened as a result of the neoliberal economic policies that guide such projects. Like other economically developing countries-particularly small island nations-the Dominican Republic embraced neoliberal policies that have ultimately reshaped the country's economic, political, cultural, and physical landscape. As a result, transnational companies, foreign investors, and large-scale enclave tourism projects are the dominant form of tourism development in the Dominican Republic. Though companies' revenue and profit data are not available for analysis of economic leakage, households can be investigated to understand the level of economic benefits obtained by residents of the local communities. Toward this end, 360 household surveys were collected to examine household income and material assets across 12 coastal communities in three regions of the Dominican Republic. Because of the noted differences in previous development literature, gender of the head of households and whether the household was dependent on income from tourism employment were compared across these measures after adjusting for regional differences. Results indicate that the gender of the head of the household and tourism dependency positively predicted household income, while only gender of the head of the household predicted material assets.

Study on Livelihood Assets-Based Spatial Differentiation of the Income of Natural Tourism Communities

“…Human assets had a significant impact on the incomes of rural households in the entire area, the core attraction area, the service support area, and the secondary service support area, affirming that human resources are at the core of sustainable livelihoods [6,28,45,81]. The core attraction area and service support area displayed an earlier tourism development, the community residents have received a good education and training in professional skills, and the quality of human assets is the key factor affecting income.…”

“…Although the stock of livelihood assets affected the income of community residents, the effective utilization of livelihood assets caused an income disparity [66]. Truong argues that the lack of livelihood capital is an important reason for residents' limited income from tourism [42]; additionally, the experience and years in tourism [67], the gender of the household head [6], and the dependence on tourism directly exert a significant positive impact on community income [6]. Social assets increase business opportunities and financial assets in tourism residents, leading to a better income [68].…”

“…Because tourism increases community employment opportunities [1][2][3], community income [1][2][3][4][5][6][7], and community livelihood assets [4] and reduces poverty [8][9][10], governments and non -governmental organizations such as China [11,12], Bhutan [13,14], and the UK Department for International Development [15][16][17][18] actively encourage communities to participate in tourism through policy support and project support. These organizations also help villages diversify livelihoods and create sustainable livelihood opportunities for local residents while community residents also strongly support the community to develop tourism because of its economic benefits [4,12,19].…”

Path Dependence and Social Network Analysis on Evolutionary Dynamics of Tourism in Coastal Rural Communities

“…For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, CRCs live dissimilar realities in the adoption of tourism. On the one hand, they have been the object of accelerated investment by large corporations [23,24] and on the other hand, in scenarios based in the community [6]. In both cases, there is a process of social, economic and environmental transformation in which it is difficult to reverse the stakeholders' decisions concerning the planning of this activity.…”

Community Perceptions of Tourism Impacts on Coastal Protected Areas

“…From 1995 to 2000, tourism gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 12% every year, compared to 8% for the rest of the economy [13]. In 2011, tourism accounted for 4.7% of the GDP, and directly or indirectly supported 14% of all employment in the country [14]. Due to the poverty that exists in the Dominican Republic, with approximately 45% of the population under the poverty threshold [15], well-managed tourism could refloat the country's economy.…”