living the divers' dream
TRANSCRIPT
Living the divers’ dream
“Communicating sustainable tourism in the diving scene of Bonaire”
Living the divers’ dream
“Communicating sustainable tourism in the diving scene of Bonaire”
Master thesis in Culture, Organization and Management
Kristiaan Hartmann
1792067
Amsterdam 18-08-2010
VU University
Faculty of Social Science
Thesis supervisor Drs. Ismintha Waldring
Second reader Dr. Carel Roessingh
Acknowledgements
Conducting the research and writing this thesis would not be able without help. First of all I want to
thank my supervisor Ismintha Waldring who gave me useful feedback and motivated me in writing the
thesis. Ewoud Klopper and Desiree Koolhaas helped me with reading and giving feedback concerning
the content. Sietske Rustenburg gave me feedback concerning the English language. I also want to
thank my parents who made it possible to study after my Tourism Management study. Furthermore I
would like to thank the people living on Bonaire who I got to know during the research. Because of
them I was able to get more information for the research.
Thank you all
Kristiaan Hartmann
“ I really feel the nature is trying so hard to compensate the men’s
abuse to the planet. This planet is sick. Like a fever. If we do not
fix it now, there’s no way to end. This is our last chance to fix this
problem that we have. Looks like a runaway train. And the time
has come and this is it. People always say that, “They’ll take care
of it. The government will deal with that.” Now, “they” who? It
starts with us. It’s us. Or else it should have never been done. ”
Michael Jackson in Michael Jackson’s movie This is it
(Ortega 2009)
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Index
Summary 2
Dutch summary 3
Introduction 5
Research question 6
Scientific Relevance 6
Structure 6
Context 7
History of The Antilles 7
Bonaire 8
Diving 11
Theoretical framework 12
Sustainable tourism 12
Intercultural communication 16
Intercultural communication and sustainable tourism on Bonaire 20
Methods 22
Ethnographic research 22
Research population 25
Results 28
Bonaire a divers‟ paradise 28
Tourism 32
Sustainability and sustainable tourism 36
Intercultural communication 44
Politics 49
Analyses 51
Conclusion 55
Reflection 58
Bibliography 60
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Summary
This research focuses on communicating sustainable tourism in the diving scene of Bonaire. For
diving it is important that marine life is sustained and protected, otherwise diving would not be as
interesting as it is. For Bonaire this is really important since this island is almost fully dependent on
diving in the tourism sector. Bonaire is seen as divers‟ paradise because of its pristine marine life.
Bonaire is a small island near the coast of Venezuela and is part of The Netherlands Antilles. It will
become a part of The Netherlands in October 2010. Bonaire is, as many Caribbean islands,
dependent on tourism to get some financial revenue. The island is focused on dive tourism. A
sustainable way of developing the island is therefore almost inevitable.
Sustainable tourism and intercultural communication are the theoretical concepts of the
research. Two concepts that have a special interest to me. Sustainability is getting more and more
important these days. Since we, as the world, encounter more and more problems of our pollution.
And since I have a bachelor in Tourism Management my knowledge lays in that field. In a globalizing
world cultures meet more and more, therefore intercultural communication is getting increasingly
important. The research question is formulated with the above mentioned context and theoretical
concepts; How does the tourism industry involving Bonaire communicate sustainable tourism and what
role do cultural differences play in the communication between the different stakeholders?
The research is conducted on Bonaire. I have gained my data with observations, participant
observations, informal conversations and recorded interviews. During my stay on Bonaire I interviewed
people that are important in the diving and/or tourism industry. While diving I could see for myself how
the dive resorts communicate sustainable tourism to the tourists and talk with other tourists.
Furthermore I became friends with people that work in the diving industry. In that way I could collect
data through informal conversations.
During the field research I found out that Bonaire is not a sustainable tourism destination at
this moment. Bonaire uses sustainability in their marketing campaign. That is why people get the
image of Bonaire being a sustainable destination. In fact this idea is only based on the Bonaire
National Marine Park, which consists of all waters around Bonaire. However Bonaire is planning to
implement several activities and programs in order to create a sustainable destination. Help from The
Netherlands is needed to solve the two huge problems that pollute Bonaire‟s nature. Firstly Bonaire
has a dump site where all garbage is dumped, nothing is separated or removed from the island.
Secondly Bonaire also lacks a proper sewerage system.
How the tourism industry is communicating sustainable tourism was not researchable because
of the lack of sustainable tourism and the lack of proper communication. However I have encountered
cultural differences between the stakeholders in tourism. These cultural differences and different
interests of the stakeholders result in bad communication. In order to create a sustainable tourism
destination Bonaire needs to implement more sustainable ways of operating and create better
communication between all stakeholders.
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Dutch summary
Dit onderzoek richt zich op het communiceren van duurzaam toerisme in de duikindustrie van Bonaire.
Voor duiken is het belangrijk dat het onderwaterleven wordt beschermd, anders zou duiken een stuk
minder interessant worden. Voor Bonaire is dit zeer belangrijk omdat het eiland zo goed als geheel
afhankelijk is van duiktoerisme. Bonaire wordt gezien als duikersparadijs vanwege het perfecte
onderwaterleven en de duikvrijheid. Bonaire is een klein eiland voor de kust van Venezuela en is
onderdeel van De Nederlandse Antillen. Het zal in oktober 2010 een speciale gemeente van
Nederland gaan worden. Het eiland is gefocust op duiktoerisme, een duurzame manier van
ontwikkelen is daarom bijna onvermijdelijk.
Duurzaam toerisme en interculturele communicatie zijn de theoretische concepten van dit
onderzoek. Deze twee concepten hebben een speciale interesse voor mij. Nu we ook vaker
problemen ondervinden door onze vervuiling wordt duurzaamheid steeds belangrijker in onze
samenleving. Vanwege mijn bachelor in Toeristisch Management ligt mijn kennis en interesse in
toerisme. In de globaliserende wereld waarin we leven, komen verschillende culturen steeds vaker
met elkaar in contact. Daarom is interculturele communicatie steeds belangrijker aan het worden. De
onderzoeksvraag is geformuleerd met de bovengenoemde context en theoretische concepten: Hoe
communiceert de toeristische industrie van Bonaire duurzaam toerisme en welke rol hebben culturele
verschillen op de communicatie tussen de verschillende belanghebbenden?
Het onderzoek is gedaan op Bonaire. Ik heb de data verzameld doormiddel van observaties,
participerende observaties, informele gesprekken en opgenomen interviews. Tijdens mijn verblijf op
Bonaire heb ik belangrijke personen in de duik- en/of toeristische industrie geïnterviewd. Tijdens de
participerende observaties, wat bestond uit zelf gaan duiken, kon ik ondervinden hoe duikresorts
duurzaamheid communiceren. Daarnaast kon ik andere toeristen spreken tijdens het duiken. Verder
ben ik veel omgegaan met mensen die werken in de duikindustrie. Op deze manier kon ik veel
informatie verzamelen via informele gesprekken.
Tijdens het veldonderzoek heb ik ondervonden dat Bonaire op dit moment geen duurzame
bestemming is. Bonaire gebruikt duurzaamheid in marketing campagnes. Daarom krijgen mensen de
indruk dat Bonaire een duurzame bestemming is. Eigenlijk is dit alleen gebaseerd op het Bonaire
National Marine Park. Dit park bestaat uit alle wateren rondom Bonaire. Bonaire is bezig met het
plannen en implementeren van verschillende activiteiten en programma‟s om een duurzame
bestemming te realiseren.
Hulp vanuit Nederland is nodig om twee grote problemen die de natuur van Bonaire vervuilen.
Ten eerste heeft Bonaire een vuilnisbelt waar alles door elkaar wordt gegooid. Alles wat op Bonaire
komt, verlaat het eiland niet en wordt op deze vuilnisbelt verzameld. Ten tweede heeft Bonaire geen
goed rioleringssysteem. Bonaire heeft niet genoeg financiële middelen om dit op te lossen.
Hoe de toeristische industrie duurzaam toerisme communiceert, was door het gebrek aan
duurzaam toerisme en het gebrek aan normale communicatie, niet te onderzoeken. Echter heb ik wel
culturele verschillen gevonden tussen de verschillende belanghebbenden in de toeristische industrie.
Deze culturele verschillen en verschillende interesses van de belanghebbenden resulteren in slechte
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communicatie. Om van Bonaire een duurzame bestemming te maken zal Bonaire meer duurzame
manieren van opereren moeten inpassen en een betere communicatie tussen alle belanghebbende
verzorgen.
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Introduction
Imagine being on a small tropical island without the annoying noise of cars or scooters, just bikes and
horses for transportation, beautiful beaches and of course beautiful weather. This is where I was in the
summer of 2009 and went diving for the very first time on Gili Trawangan, a small island near the
coast of Lombok, Indonesia. During this trip in Indonesia I spent most of the time on Bali surfing. Since
surfing is one of my favorite sports I had the time of my life on the good waves of Bali. On Bali we
planned a three day trip to Gili Trawangan to see this island. I ended up in a diving course and had a
lot of fun on this small island, therefore we extended our stay to 7 days, even though there was no
possibility to go surfing on this island. This was the moment I started to appreciate diving and
especially the island life, not thinking about any kind of research or study. What I like about these
kinds of islands is not only the climate, which is of course very nice with mostly good weather and a
nice breeze, but the local people interest me, they have the ocean as a kind of natural boundary and
have to deal with the community they live in. Therefore the island life is mostly good and a bit laid
back. The boundaries of an island are more fixed than a city or country.
Back home in The Netherlands and back to reality, I had to choose a topic for my master
thesis. Because I have a bachelor‟s degree in Tourism Management my interest and knowledge lay in
that field. That is why I wanted to include tourism in my thesis. In my pre-master thesis intercultural
communication was one of the concepts. Ever since my study Tourism Management this concept has
drawn my interest. What interests me in particular is the difference in how people communicate with
regard to their cultural background. I have studied many cases during my Tourism Management study,
in which lack of good intercultural communication had a negative impact. Good knowledge on how to
communicate intercultural is very important.
So I had two concepts, but no context yet. I wanted to conduct a study in an up to date
context. Recently sustainable business and products are growing everywhere. Since this is also the
case in tourism, I wanted to focus on sustainable tourism. After a chat with Carel Roessingh where he
made me enthusiastic for a research in the Caribbean, combined with my diving experience in
Indonesia, I decided to include diving in my research. Because diving is very much related to the
environment and tourism, it is a very interesting context for sustainable tourism. Therefore I decided to
conduct the research on Bonaire, which is one of the islands within The Netherlands Antilles. I chose
Bonaire for several reasons, first of all I had to find a destination in the Caribbean where Spanish is
not the main language. This because my Spanish language skills are not good enough to conduct an
extended research. Hence I narrowed my destinations down to a few countries. Bonaire is one of the
top diving spots in the world, the island is known as „divers‟ paradise‟. This in combination with their
high sustainable and eco development policy (STINAPA 2010: website) Bonaire is the perfect
destination for this research. One could ask why I would like to investigate the working of sustainable
tourism in an area where it all seems to go very well. I always raise the question how sustainable, eco-
friendly or „green‟ organizations really are. People tend to say a lot of things but how does this work in
practice? Do they really operate as sustainable as they say they do? Or do they use it as a marketing
tool? These kinds of questions pop up in my head when I read about sustainability.
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How does the tourism industry involving Bonaire communicate sustainable
tourism and what role do cultural differences play in the communication between
the different stakeholders?
Research question
The aim of the research is to find out how the people of Bonaire work out and communicate
sustainable tourism. How this infects the community and how the different actors interact with each
other. With sustainable tourism and intercultural communication as concepts and Bonaire as the
context for the research I formulated the next research question.
The concepts sustainable tourism and intercultural communication will be discussed extendedly later
on, however I think the terms dive resorts and cultural should be clarified here. Cultural differences will
not be narrowed down to ethnic or nation state difference because there may be a cultural difference
between the different stakeholders no matter what kind of ethnic background they have. The tourism
industry is focused on the dive resorts because divers are by far the largest tourist group for Bonaire
(tourismbonaire 2010: website). The term dive resorts is chosen instead of diving schools. This due to
the fact that a diving resort may also have a shop or accommodation and is not limited just to the
school. The different stakeholders are locals, tourists, dive resorts, STINAPA Bonaire National Marine
Park and Tourism Corporation Bonaire.
Scientific Relevance
This thesis contributes to the ongoing debate concerning intercultural communication and sustainable
tourism. The concepts will be discussed in the context of Bonaire and diving. Different perspectives
and theories will be analyzed and I will try to give new insights on the concepts. Sustainability is
getting more and more important these days and is, according to Cooper et al. (2005), a growing
market in tourism. In a globalizing world cultures meet more and more, therefore intercultural
communication is getting more and more important. I could not find any other research that combined
sustainable tourism and intercultural communication.
The research will show how sustainable tourism works in practice on Bonaire. Tourists can
see how sustainable Bonaire is in practice and what the island does for preserving nature and culture.
For Bonaire the results of the research will show how their communication works in practice and where
they should improve their communication.
Structure
The thesis will start with the context of the research. The area of the fieldwork will be described here.
After the context the theoretical framework is presented; sustainable tourism and intercultural
communication will be discussed and explained. After constructing the theoretical framework the
methods of the research are presented. Here I will present how the research in practice was and who
the respondents were. The last chapter will contain the results of the research, where the results of the
fieldwork, the analyses and the conclusion are presented. The next part is the context of the research.
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Context
In this section the context of the research will be described. The context of the research are Bonaire, a
small island in the Caribbean and part of The Netherlands Antilles, and scuba diving. First some
history on Dutch colonialization will be described, which will be narrowed down to Bonaire at the
present. After Bonaire I will shortly describe scuba diving to give an insight in this branch of tourism.
History of The Antilles
According to Oostindie (2005) the history of the Dutch in the Caribbean is a rather sad story. The
history of the Dutch in the Caribbean began as consequence of the revolution of the Low Countries
against Spain. This revolution is known as the Eighty Years‟ War and is the foundation of the Dutch
Republic. After this war, which lasted from 1568 till 1648, the Caribbean became a new battlefront,
however the distinction between war and piracy was not a clear one at that moment. After the success
of the Dutch East India Company, namely in Indonesia, the Dutch West India Company was founded.
This was not more than a way of privatizing and the company was used for war. A famous deed, seen
as heroic, was the interception of a Spanish fleet in the waters of the Cuban bay of Matanzas by Piet
Heyn in 1628 (Oostindie 2005). Heyn captured a big amount of money with this interception for the
Dutch government, in current money comparing to half a billion euro‟s. At first The Netherlands gained
control of north-eastern Brazil. Brazil is where The Netherlands became involved in slave trading and
cultivating. The slaves were taken from Africa where The Netherlands had a trading post in South
Africa. The Dutch lost their parts within Brazil in 1654 and after the loss of New Amsterdam, which was
traded with the Caribbean islands and now know as New York, the centre of Dutch America was
founded in the Caribbean. After several wars the Caribbean archipelago was redistributed and Spain,
France and Great Britain gained their islands. Six islands, a few colonies at the coast of South
America and Suriname remained for the Dutch. After 1800 the colonies next to Suriname became
British Guinea which is now known as Guyana. What was left for The Netherlands was Suriname on
the Southern American continent and the six islands in the Caribbean. Those six islands were Aruba,
Curacao, Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten (Oostindie 2005) which formed the
Netherlands Antilles.
In 1986 (CIA Worldfactbook 2009: website) Aruba gained status aparte. A status aparte
means that Aruba is seen as a country within the Dutch Kingdom. The Dutch Kingdom consists of The
Netherlands, The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. So Aruba has the same status as The Netherlands
as a country (Parlement 2010: website).
The colonial period formed the base of the current population on the islands. The
Amerindians, who are the original inhabitants, were wiped out from the islands during the
colonialization. The current population is a mix of European colonists, African slaves, Asian contract
workers and small minorities for example consisting of migrated Americans and Dutch (Oostindie
2005). An obvious expression of this cultural mix is the fact that The Netherlands Antilles has three
official languages namely Papiamento, Dutch and English. Papiamento is the clearest expression of
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the mix because this is a Creole language. This language is based on Spanish and Portuguese with
influences of the Dutch, English and French language (CIA Worldfactbook 2009: website).
In 1975 Suriname became independent from The Netherlands. Suriname had a lot of
problems with her independency. The first 5 years of independency were filled with political
incompetency, corruption and ethnic problems. Because of these problems a military coup was
sympathized by the Surinamese. However after this coup Suriname was dictated by Desi Bouterse,
who was not able to lead the country. After seven years of dictator leadership Suriname returned to
democratic rules. The democratic rules did not put an end to the economic malaise and poverty. With
knowledge of the history of Suriname, full independency became very unattractive for The Netherlands
Antilles. But some political parties and parts of the inhabitants of The Netherlands Antilles would like to
be an independent nation. As a result there is a huge political discourse on this topic. Aruba
negotiated a status aparte within the Dutch Kingdom in 1986. The Netherlands Antilles as a state was
never fully supported by all islands (Oostindie 2005). Therefore, at this moment (2009-2010) The
Netherlands Antilles are getting new statuses within the Dutch Kingdom. A process is put into motion
were Curacao and Sint Maarten will be associated states within the Kingdom of The Netherlands.
Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius are going to be special municipalities and will be a direct part of The
Netherlands. Therefore The Netherlands Antilles will no longer exist on October 10th 2010 (NOS 2009
& Caribseek 2009: website). Now that the history of The Netherlands Antilles is clear, the focus shifts
towards Bonaire itself in the next section.
Bonaire
Bonaire is a small island near the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean sea, as can be seen in figure 1.
Figure 1 (caribbeandiving 2010: website).
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The island has 12.877 inhabitants as of January 2009. Only half of them were born on the island and
around 85% have a Dutch nationality (CBS 2009: website). There are also a lot of part-time residents
that are not counted in the counting of the CBS. According to the Bonaire Tourism Board (2009:
website), Bonaire is an island with a typical island vibe. This vibe means that nothing is rushed and
nobody is in a hurry. The mentality of the island inhabitants is laid back and relaxed. Because the
island does not provide her own consumer goods, everything has to be imported with ships. This
means that European and United States norms cannot always be provided. For example a
supermarket can run out of products. Also power outs are more frequent than in Europe or the United
States of America. These are facts that the visitors have to take into account when visiting the island
to avoid irritation and frustration (Bonaire tourism board 2010: website).
According to Oostindie (2005) tourism on Bonaire is increasing, but not as rapidly as on Aruba
and Curacao. Bonaire became very popular due to its pristine marine qualities. The underwater world
is seen as „dive mecca‟, the wind is very constant and therefore perfect for windsurfing and kite
boarding. The nice whether all year round makes Bonaire also a popular tourism destination. The
growth of tourists forced Bonaire to implement management to retain its pristine conditions. Most of
the tourism is marine related and therefore Bonaire created, with help from The Netherlands, Bonaire
National Marine Park in 1979 (Parker 2000). The activities of Captain Don Stewart were one of the
reasons to create the marine park. Stewart was the first to open a dive school on Bonaire and the first
who realized that the underwater nature had to be protected. The marine park is a part of STINAPA
which is an NGO and organizes the day to day management of the park. STINAPA is a Dutch
abbreviation that stands for The Netherlands Antilles National Parks Foundation (STINAPA 2009:
website). The website tourismbonaire.com (2010) states that Bonaire won the 2008 Sustainable
Tourism Award from the Islands Magazine and Caribbean Tourism Organization. The winner of 2009
cannot be found on the Internet. Bonaire also won the title of most favorite dive destination in 2009.
Bonaire was rated as top destination on 8 out of 12 categories like top marine life, top snorkeling and
top health of marine environment (Telegraaf 2010: website). Almost all dive spots are at the eastside
of Bonaire as can be seen on figure 2. Other important area‟s are also visible on figure 2, Kralendijk
which is the capital and together with Rincon the only two cities of the island. Rincon is the oldest town
of the island. In the north there is the Washington Slagbaai National Park which is also a part of
STINAPA. Most divers will stay in hotels in the Kralendijk area while windsurfers will stay at the west
side of the island, since Lac Bay is the windsurf spot.
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Figure 2 (bonairefuntravel 2010: website).
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Diving
Diving is a sport that is officially called scuba-diving1, mostly just called diving. Diving people go into
the water, which is mostly the sea but could also be lakes and rivers, with special dive gear. This gear
includes an air tank, fins, a buoyancy control device (BCD) which a lot of things are attached to like the
regulator to breath with, a spare regulator or octopus, an inflator and deflator for the BCD vest and a
computer where the diver can see how much air there is left and how deep he or she is. A wetsuit,
dive computer, knife, gloves and light are optional but commonly used gear.
Diving as we know it nowadays is used for different kinds of disciplines. The military uses it in
operations, it is used as labor in for example underwater constructions but commonly known as sport
or leisure purpose. To start with diving, people can start with an introduction dive without certification.
Most people will follow a short course to get a certificate and to be able to dive without an instructor.
This certification is called open water where people are trained in the basics of scuba-diving which is
mostly safety instructions and some basic skills to be able to dive safely. On Bonaire I was able to
follow the open water advanced course. In this course, differing slightly depending on which
organization you use, the diver is trained in some special dive skills. I was trained in some commonly
used skills like deep diving where you are able to dive deeper than 12 meters and not deeper than 40
meters, wreck diving, night diving, navigation diving and boat diving.
The history of scuba diving goes back in history a very long time. It started with people who
just breath-hold to go underwater to search for example food. According to Lakesidepress (2010:
website) the first story known about someone who could breath underwater is the story of Scyllis and
took place 500 B.C. Scyllis was taken as prisoner by a Persian king. As a prisoner he found out that
the Persians were about to attack the Greek. Scyllis took a knife and jumped into the water. The
Persians were not able to find him and thought he died. But Scyllis used a hollow reed as a snorkel to
stay underwater and breathe at the same time. The story tells us that Scyllis cut the ships loose from
its moorings in the night and swam back and saved the Greeks of an attack from the Persians
(Lakesidepress 2010: website).
Since the 16th century people have been able to breathe underwater without the use of a
snorkel. People used for example a diving bell full of air to breath underwater. In this period all kinds of
ways to breathe underwater were invented. All inventions were with air from the surface. In the 19th
century the Deane brothers invented a diving suit and helmet where air from the surface was pumped
in. This was modified and optimized by Benoit Rouquayrolen and Auguste Denayrouze and in that
way they developed the first scuba device with which they could go to a depth of 30 meters for 30
minutes. Scuba-diving as we know it now was born (Lakesidepress 2010: website). Now the context of
the research is clear I will set out the theoretical framework that I used for this research in the next
chapter.
1 Scuba is an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
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“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you
comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable”.
Clifton Fadiman (1904 - 1999) (Quotationspage 2010:website)
Theoretical framework
In this chapter the theory that I used is set out. The concepts sustainable tourism and intercultural
communication are used as a theoretical background for the research I will start with sustainable
tourism.
Sustainable tourism
This quote of Clifton Fadiman I came across on the Qoutationspage website. I think this quote
represents the need of sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism focuses on sustaining the destination
for the future. In this part the concept of sustainable tourism will be presented and explained. First
sustainable tourism in general and later on this will be narrowed down to sustainable tourism and
development on Bonaire. First of all the concept tourism will be introduced shortly2.
Tourism includes all types of visits and stays of people. The visits and stays do not have to be
only for leisure purpose. Educational and business visits are also called tourism. Cooper et al. (2005)
state that tourism is hard to define, and call tourism a multidimensional and multifaceted activity,
because tourism brings many people in various economic sectors and activities together. Mainly
therefore in the last 200 years scholars have still not agreed upon a single definition of tourism. Mainly
because of its complexity, but also because tourism is a relatively young study field. Definitions of
tourism can be either a demand-side definition or a supply-side definition, some definitions even say it
can be both (Cooper et al. 2005). According to Cooper et al. (2005) WTO and UNSTAT defined the
demand-side of tourism as: “The activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their
usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes‟
(Cooper et al. 2005: 13) The supply-side of tourism is defined as: “The tourist industry consists of all
those firms, organizations and facilities which are intended to serve the specific needs and wants of
tourists” (Cooper et al. 2005: 13). The supply-side definition is rather vague, this is mainly because
there are businesses that for example serve food to tourism residences but also to other markets. This
makes the supply side hard to measure and to define. The tourism satellite account (TSA) defined the
supply-side as all the goods and services that are purchased by the visitors. In this way the supply
side of tourism can be measured (TSA in Cooper et al. 2005).
The tourism industry is one of the largest sectors in the world economy (TSA in Cooper et al.
2005). Tourism has a lot of impact on people globally. Fortunately most of these impacts are positive,
for example tourism provides a lot of income for a country, but sadly tourism can also have a negative
2 For the description of tourism I used a part of my pre-master thesis on intercultural communication between tourists and locals
in Bali, Indonesia.
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“Sustainable tourism development meets the needs of present tourists and host
regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. It is envisaged
as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economical, social,
and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential
ecological processes, and biological diversity, and life support systems” (Cooper
et al. 2005: 264)
impact. For example the nature that suffers from tourism. To minimize the negative impacts the
tourism industry is searching for durable alternatives. The disadvantage for tourism, compared to other
economies that also search for durable alternatives, is that tourism is a product that is produced and
consumed at the same moment. A tourist has to visit the destination to make it tourism. A reaction to
the negative impacts is sustainable tourism. (Cooper et al. 2005). I will set out below why sustainable
tourism is a reaction to the negative impacts and how sustainable tourism can minimize the negative
impacts.
Sustainable tourism is a concept which has hundreds of published definitions. According to
Cooper et al. (2005) World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as follows:
Cooper et al. (2005) state that the key factors that come out of the debates on the definition of
sustainability are the fact that durable environmental, socio-cultural, economic and political well being
of all stakeholders must be considered. To reach sustainable goals all stakeholders need to cooperate
and engage in the tourism processes. Hence this includes the supply side and demand side of
tourism. Sustainable tourism tries to minimize the impact of tourism on the local destination, in terms
of nature and culture. But it also helps in economical development and political well being of the
destination. Since sustainable tourism is a very complex and hard to define concept, and it differs in
practice all over the world, the focus here will be on island tourism in the Caribbean.
According to Apostolopoulos & Gayle (2002) the islands in the Caribbean are characterized as
MIRAB societies. MIRAB stands for Migration, Remittances, Aid, and Bureaucracy. These kind of
societies were often dependent on (ex)colonial or other forces. MIRAB societies are also known as
very much subsidized societies. After the Cold War and the reorganizing of the world order, the
MIRAB societies changed and needed economic diversification. The MIRAB societies became
independent or less dependent of their colonial forces, or some of these societies became dependent
on other countries (Apostolopoulos & Gayle 2002). Consequently tourism became the favorite choice
to become financially stronger/independent for many islands. Nowadays island tourism and, especially
in the Caribbean, cruise tourism has become very popular and is become mass tourism. As a result of
the growing amount of tourists on the islands, they needed to develop the land. Hotels, resorts and
harbors „destroyed‟ the coastlines of many islands because nature was replaced by hotels, resorts and
harbors in order to welcome the tourists. The increase of tourists led to cultural losses and population
changes that influence the native cultures. Inhabitants of some island were scared away by the visiting
tourists and people from other islands saw opportunities for work and a better life. Therefore they
migrated to the popular tourism destinations. Also people from (ex)colonial forces saw opportunities in
14
the tourism industry on these islands. This all resulted in cultural losses and population changes
(Apostolopoulos & Gayle 2002). To maintain the long-term viability of tourism, sustainable
development and tourism are required on these islands. Islands differ from „normal‟ countries due to
differences and limitations in economic possibilities, nature and culture. The Caribbean islands have
less economical possibilities since the fact that they have less money and not enough support from
other large economical forces. Because of the size of the islands, which is rather small, the nature
suffers more and faster from development of hotels and large resorts because the lack of space.
Cultures are small and in the beginning more or less isolated and therefore often susceptible to
influences from outside (Apostolopoulos & Gayle 2002). Therefore the possibilities for sustainable
development, ecologically and economically, are not endless. This is due to the fact that human
resources and economic development are limited to the size of the island. There are of course a lot of
differences in the size of impact on the islands, but sustainable development is needed
(Apostolopoulos & Gayle 2002).
According to McElroy & de Albuquerque (2002) there are a lot of problems for tourism on
small islands. These problems can be either internal or external. Internal problems are for example the
differences between wages in different sectors. Because of these differences people move from
traditional labor like agriculture or traditional export products to better paid jobs in modern export
sectors like tourism. In the Caribbean tourism replaced fishing and handicrafts in a short time. An
example of products that are replaced because of tourism is the import of faster and durable food, this
discourages local entrepreneurship. Problems can also be heavy emigration, which happens on
stagnating islands. As a result labor force and entrepreneurship will decrease. That will lead to
shortcomings on the islands. But also a heavy increase of immigration leads to problems. Namely for
the ecosystem, since more inhabitants, because of the success of tourism, require urbanization
(McElroy & de Albuquerque 2002)
External problems are for example the fact that small islands are dependent on their export,
which is mostly tourism. Tourism is seen as an export product because the tourists buy a touristic
experience. When the demand and supply side of the export product (not only tourism) cannot match
due to external problems like an (worldwide) economical or political crisis, the islands will have a
problem. External problems could be also natural disasters. The Caribbean suffers from hurricanes
and earthquakes (McElroy & de Albuquerque 2002). However Bonaire does not suffer a lot from the
hurricane season or other natural disasters as islands in the northern part of the Caribbean do, like
Haiti in January 2010 (NOS 2010: website; nu.nl 2010: website).
The tourism industry in the Caribbean is responsible for somewhere around 25% of the
income in the Caribbean (Sasidharan & Thapa 2002). Tourism is the economic basis for most islands
in this area. The Caribbean is also a very popular destination for cruise-ships and their visitors.
According to Tewarie (in Sasidharan & Thapa 2002) the Caribbean is the most tourism dependent
area in the world. However this is not the case for every single island. Puerto Rico, Jamaica, The
Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and The Bahamas are the most visited islands in the
Caribbean. The United States of America provide with more than 50 percent the most tourists to the
Caribbean (Sisdharan & Thapa 2002). In Bonaire‟s case there is an alternative for its income besides
15
tourism. Salt making, in a nature friendly way, is together with tourism the main income for Bonaire
(Parker 2000). However, also on the lesser visited island in the Caribbean, tourism is the largest
source of income. In order to maintain this income and simultaneously maintain and protect nature and
culture, sustainable tourism can be the solution (Sasidharan & Thapa 2002).
Sustainable tourism is required in the Caribbean mostly to protect the nature on the islands.
Tourism in the Caribbean is focused on coastal and marine related activities. The ecosystem of the
coastline and marine life is threatened by tourism (Sasidharan & Thapa 2002). Therefore more and
more control and management on coastal and marine activities are coming to the islands. Some
islands identified areas as national parks, historical sites, and nature reserves to protect it from tourism
threats and land development. For example Turks and Caicos Islands and Bonaire identified marine
sites as national parks and Jamaica integrated community-based coastal and marine management to
work with sustainable ways to protect their coastal and marine areas (Sasidharan & Thapa 2002).
In the Caribbean there is a growing awareness of the need of sustainable tourism (Sasidharan
& Thapa 2002). The definition of the Brundtland Report (in Sasidharan & Thapa 2002: 105) of
sustainable tourism is a definition that is of appliance on the Caribbean “..development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of further generations to meet their own needs”,
added with “..decision-making in the hands of the host communities” (Wheeler in Sasidharan & Thapa
2002: 105).
The definition above of the Brundtland Report is of appliance on Caribbean islands. However
in the early days of tourism on Bonaire there also was uncontrolled tourism. The World Wildlife Fund
convinced the Dutch and Antillean government that intervention was needed to protect the marine
ecosystem. In 1979 Bonaire created the Bonaire National Marine Park. This park is nowadays a self-
supporting park, but was created by a Dutch grant. The marine park is a part of STINAPA which is an
NGO and organizes the day to day management of the park. STINAPA and Bonaire National Marine
Park are not the only organizations that have considerable roles in sustainable development. There
are several organizations and foundations on the island, for example Tourism Corporation of Bonaire
and Bonaire Hotel and Tourism Associations that support the sustainable development of Bonaire
(Parker 2000). The organizations and foundations have two different interests. The promotion of
tourism and the promotion of conservation. According to Parker (2000) these two interests go hand in
hand on Bonaire, but social and ecological limits may be reached on a short-term. This is because of
the increasing number of tourists on the island. As a result conflicts may arise on the island. How this
cooperation and communication works in practice concerning sustainable tourism development will be
the main focus of the research. Since this communication will be intercultural, the concept of
intercultural communication will be set out in the next part.
16
Intercultural communication
In this part I elaborate on intercultural communication, the second concept of the research. I will start
with a, for me, classical example of failure in intercultural communication, to show its importance. After
the example I shall discuss globalization and intercultural communication to show that those are
intertwined3. Intercultural communication is not narrowed down to communication between different
ethnic cultures in the form of tourists and locals. Also the communication between businesses and
networks that include different ethnic cultures are included in this concept. Communication between
organizations and networks, that have no particularly different ethnical backgrounds, may also be
intercultural communication. This because of the different organizational cultures (Verluyten 2004;
Hofstede in Verluyten 2004). Therefore this is also included in this concept.
Intercultural communication failure
I will start this discussion with an example of intercultural failure in Eurodisney4. I believe this is a very
good example because a lot of people have visited Eurodisney and will recognize it. The example is a
classic case, as Verluyten (2004) calls it, to illustrate the price of intercultural awareness.
After the successes of Disneyland in Anaheim-Los Angeles, California, which opened in 1955
and Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida, which opened in 1971, Disney opened Eurodisney in Paris in
April 1992. The successes of Disneyland and Disneyworld were huge in the United States. Therefore
there was no reason to doubt a new success in Europe, but history proved otherwise.
The losses started as soon Eurodisney opened its doors. In 1993 Eurodisney lost $ 1 billion and in
1994-5 Eurodisney lost $ 1 million a day. Of course these losses were not entirely the result of cultural
differences and mistakes, but they contributed significantly. Below Verluyten (2004) described some
features of Eurodisney when it opened its doors.
- Europeans felt they were second-rank customers because Disneyland opened their
doors in 1955 and Eurodisney did not open till 1992 with the same old products.
- The product was not adapted to Europe. There were no European fairytales and
myths in Eurodisney. Only American cowboys, Indians and that kind of stories.
- The majority of the Americans had only a two week holiday and most of the
Europeans four weeks. Furthermore, per capita the income in the United States of
America was higher than the European average. This is why Americans spend more
money in a shorter period of time. Consequently, the prices in Eurodisney were high
when measured against European standards.
- Americans do not mind queuing for a long time. They chat easily with strangers while
waiting for an attraction. Europeans do not like waiting for a long time and because of
the many different European languages there is less opportunity to chat with other
people.
3 For the concept of intercultural communication I used a part of my pre-master thesis on intercultural communication between
tourists and locals in Bali, Indonesia. 4 Is now called Disneyland Paris (www.disney.nl)
17
- Language was a very big problem. Eurodisney had difficulty finding employees who
were able to speak more than just French.
- In Europe there are different eating habits. The Dutch and Germans go for a dinner
around 18.00 but the restaurants were still closed because the French eat between
19.00 and 21.30. The Spanish found a closed door as well because they came for a
dinner around 22.00. (Verluyten 2004)
This case shows the importance of good intercultural knowledge. If Disney had thought about these
potential problems at an earlier stage, it could have saved them a lot of money and problems.
In the Disney case I mentioned „The Dutch‟ and „Germans‟. Of course the case is not about all
the Dutch and Germans. First of all it is only about the Dutch and Germans who visited Eurodisney,
but even then the cultural features and characteristics of Germans and Dutch do not apply to all the
individual members of these groups. The fact people necessarily display the features and
characteristics that belong to the place they come from is an error and called ecological fallacy
(Hofstede and Lane & DiStefano in Verluyten 2004). According to Verluyten (2004) authors like
Hofstede and Lane & DiStefano have warned about this phenomenon. Ecological fallacy has always
to be taken into account when studying something about culture or cultural differences. Therefore,
when I speak of a certain ethnic group or culture I speak of this group or culture in general. Of course
there will be exceptions present.
As the example of Disney shows, intercultural differences were overlooked, for a long time,
just as problems in communication. People assumed that all international businesses would behave
one way, the Western way. All management models were developed in western societies, mainly
England and The United States of America. Nowadays the attitude that the only way to do business is
the western way, is not acceptable anymore but nevertheless, there still is a lot of resistance to
intercultural training. This differs for each country; in the Netherlands intercultural training is provided
by several independent institutions. Resistance towards training has several reasons. First of all
people think that experience is the way to learn this domain. But as it is the same with learning a new
language or using for example a new machine, some theoretical knowledge and/or training is a better
way to learn. It makes sense to train people before they are sent off to another country to do business
there (Verluyten 2004). For tourists this make no sense, but information can be provided before they
go to a certain destination in order to be prepared for possible cultural differences. Intercultural
communication is part of a larger concept called globalization. Therefore, I will take a sidestep to
globalization before I move on to intercultural communication.
Globalization and intercultural communication
According to Baraldi (2006: 54) globalization creates “interdependence among societies and cultures
that were previously separated”. To understand globalization, sociologists use the terms
interdependence and intensity of relations in the world (Robertson; Giddens in Baraldi 2006).
According to Baraldi (2006) many sociologists promote globalization as a cultural understanding
(Giddens, Robertson, Beck, Bauman, Tomlison, Pieterse in Baraldi 2006). This cultural point of view
underlines the connection between cultural innovation and cultural conservation. So, globalization has
18
a more or less positive and negative impact on culture. On one side, globalization stimulates cultural
change and new opportunities in communication, but on the other side globalization also threatens
cultural traditions. As Baraldi (2006: 54) states “... both openness and closure create the value of
diversity but at the same time they threaten the source of diversity”. Because closure to cultural
pollution or hybridization maintains the plurality of cultures, but it prevents any meaningful
communication between them. The relation between global cultures and local cultures is called
„glocalization‟ by Robertson (in Baraldi 2006). According to Kim & Gudykunst, Samovar & Porter,
Bennett, Ting-Toomey (in Baraldi 2006) glocalization is a result of intercultural communication since
different cultures are communicating with each other. Global and local cultures will interact via
intercultural communication. According to Baraldi (2006) Carbaugh states that communication is
intercultural when the creation of a shared culture is prevented by different cultural perspectives. In my
point of view one could say that all communication between people is intercultural communication.
Because every single person has different cultural identities, nobody is the same and shares all the
same values. But maybe this goes a bit too far in the discussion of intercultural communication,
however Barnett Pearce observed that any communication is intercultural because any individual
differs culturally from others (in Gullestrup 2002).
Baraldi (2006) states that glocalization is the result of regular intercultural communication. This
involves confrontation between actors socialized in differently structured societies and confrontation
between non-globalized societies with globalized societies. This results in communication between
specific cultural forms of those differently structured societies. Globalization is founded upon these
cultural forms. According to Luhmann and Giorgi (in Baraldi 2006: 55); “globalization can be explained
as an expansion of a functionally differentiated society.... this kind of society appeared in Europe in the
17th century and has developed internally up until the present day”. The cultural forms are pluralism,
modernism and individualism.
Pluralism means that people have different beliefs on for example power, love, etc. Modernism
is a successful factor of Europe and their former colonies (such as the United States of America and
Australia). These countries had a great interest in change, emancipation and innovation. Individualism
is a form that stresses independence or self reliance. The goal of an individual is more important than
that of a group. It is the opposite to collectivism, which places the group goals above that of an
individual. Collectivism is seen a lot throughout Asian countries. These cultural forms became the
main forms of the communication process in Europe and helped to create civilization in the world
(Luhmann and De Giorgi in Baraldi 2006). In this case we speak of civilization in the eyes of Europe
and their former colonies, which are commonly known as „The West‟ or „The Western world‟. The
communication and confrontation between societies with different cultural forms is, according to
Baraldi (2006) a form of glocalization. Therefore, Baraldi (2006) calls globalization a form of
glocalization.
Globalization is important as an overview of values that are indicators of a civilized world or
cultural output, which includes values like democracy, human rights, individual freedom, etc. These
values are not stable values all over the world. This is why there is not one world society, but a lot of
variations on the functionally differentiated society with its cultural forms (in Baraldi 2006). The
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variations on and alternatives of a functionally differentiated society give the most problems in
communication in the world. Variations and alternatives of a functionally differentiated society are
stratified and collective societies. Stratified societies are described by Luhmann and De Giorgi (Baraldi
2006: 56) as a society where “...hierarchical relationship between dominating and dominated groups
and the corresponding assumption of group belonging as a source of individual status constitute the
main structure”. Hofstede (in Baraldi 2006) described collectivist societies as a society where group
relations are the way to give meaning to the individual. When individuals of these various societies
communicate for any reason, the cultural differences become visible. This is the general intercultural
communication.
Thus intercultural communication is present when individuals from different cultural
backgrounds communicate with each other. Referring to this cultural background people often think of
ethnic cultural backgrounds where people come from a certain country or area. However a cultural
background can also be an organization or business network. This means that when different
organizations, or even different departments of an organization, or networks communicate you can
also speak of intercultural communication. Failure in the communication can arise and a danger for the
organization or network.
Pearce stated that Ethnocentrism is in collectivist and stratified societies the most important
structure of communication (in Baraldi 2006). Ethnocentrism means that others behavior is interpreted
and evaluated from one‟s own perspective, one‟s own reference frame. Baraldi (2006) states that this
results in a positive us and negative them. The functional differentiated society believes that its cultural
forms (pluralism, individualism and modernism) have a positive value contrast to the cultural forms that
have, in their eyes, a negative value and threatens them (collectivism, hierarchies and normative
stability). Because of this, Baraldi (2006) calls intercultural communication „culturally conditioned‟.
This process between the positive and negative values which creates a contradiction between them is
called modernist ethnocentrism (Baraldi 2006). It is modernist because it is based on knowledge,
openness and development and not on prejudices and stereotypes. In spite of this modernist
ethnocentrism the functional differentiated societies failed to create, through globalization, a world
society, a world society that creates the same human rights, economic security and health for
everybody. A combination or even hybridization of individualism and collectivism is essential to create
a world society. Cultural forms have to be combined, however it can only be successful when the
cultural differences are supported and accepted through communication. This is why conflicts and
contradictions in the cultural forms should be managed instead of evaded (Baraldi 2006).
To create a multicultural society, ethnocentrism has to be defeated. According to Milhouse et
al. (in Baraldi 2006) this new identity should create a new form of transnational communication. This
includes intercultural learning, multicultural identity and cross-cultural adaption. A transcultural form of
communication means that maintenance of cultural diversity is impossible. As Baraldi quotes Pieterse:
“Contaminations is unavoidable as cultural forms are produced in communication and this means that
intercultural communication has effects of hybridization on learning and identities” (in Baraldi 2006:
63). Baraldi (2006) states that maintenance of identity and cultural adaption cannot be found in any
scientific literature. He quotes Kim who stressed: “There is no contradiction between maintenance of a
20
positive cultural identity and the development of a flexible intercultural identity” (in Baraldi 2006: 63)
However Baraldi (2006) does not totally agree with Kim. Some cultures have to give away some of
their respected cultural forms to create a world society. This, in the end, is going to be based on a
functional differentiated society. At least, that is what Baraldi (2006) stresses, he states that the
multicultural identity is not a new cultural form but a remake or product of functional differentiation.
Gudykunst (in Baraldi 2006:64) doubts this multicultural identity “ethnocentric tendency is natural and
unavoidable and everyone is ethnocentric to some degree”. In other words, everybody has somehow
positive cultural values and thoughts about his own cultural identity. In a multicultural identity people
would like to see their own cultural values as the most important. This is an obstacle in creating a
world society because of these cultural power issues. Example of this is that for collectivist and
hierarchical societies it will be very hard to understand the individual rights of the functional
differentiated societies. This is socially and historical embedded and therefore hard to change
(Gudykunst in Baraldi 2006).
Intercultural communication and sustainable tourism on Bonaire
On Bonaire there is a long history of intercultural communication going on. As can be read in the
context, Bonaire has been a part of many countries. Relatives of the people from the different
countries are still present on the island. These are mixed with relatives of African slaves. Therefore
there is a mix of Europeans, South Americans and Africans on the island. This can be seen in the
language on Bonaire which is Papiamento. The language is a mix of all the different cultures that were
present on the island. In the last years more and more people from The United States of America and
other Caribbean islands have been moving to Bonaire (Oostindie 2005).
According to Pinto (1990) one of the main problems in intercultural communication is not
knowing one another. Not to know or not to understand the other culture often results in no respect
and dislike of the other culture. These kinds of problems often arise by big differences. An extravagant
example is getting some people out of the rainforest and put them in a modern western society. That
will result in extreme misunderstandings and dislikes in both ways. The problems can also be present
when the differences are less obvious. Problems in communication are the fact that people do not
recognize cultural differences and other reactions than their own values and norms. That will result in
wrong interpretation and after that in/to conflicts. The results can be devastating as the example of
Disney shows. For good intercultural communication it is important to know the other culture. However
to recognize the differences, people have to know their own culture. When these two factors are
known people can choose how to react appropriately. Knowing your own culture, knowing the other
culture and knowing how people should react on the other culture are called the three step method of
Pinto (1990). Pinto (1990) claims that with these three steps intercultural communication will be
successful. A problem that can arise in communication is the language since this is a very important
communication tool. On Bonaire Dutch is the second official language, but I do not think people from
The Netherlands can assume that they speak the same kind of Dutch as in The Netherlands Antilles.
There might be a difference in the use of words or meaning of words. We see the same in the Flemish
language which is Belgian-Dutch. The official language in the Flemish part of Belgium is Dutch but it is
21
a special dialect (culutramavzw 2010: website). There are sometimes huge differences in the use of
words.
Intercultural communication will be present on Bonaire in various ways. The fact that there are
people from different geographical areas will result in intercultural communication. The culture on the
island will be different from the culture of most of the visitors. But also the communication between
different organizations within the tourism industry will result in intercultural communication. This
because a organization has its own organizational culture. There is a lot of intercultural communication
and a great many possible differences in the communication of sustainable tourism on Bonaire. This
because within the different organizations (cultures) it is possible that there are different cultures from
geographical areas, a kind of double intercultural communication.
Intercultural communication is not only communication between people from different
geographical areas and their different cultures. A business, a network, an organizational department or
sports club also has its own culture (Baraldi 2006; Gullestrup 2002; Pinto 1990). Cultural differences
between organizational departments can be devastating for the organization. An example is aviation
company Fokker as de Raaf (2009) stated. Within Fokker the differences between the marketing and
the manufacturing department were so big that in the end it resulted in the bankruptcy of Fokker (de
Raaf 2009: guest lecture VU University). Another example are the problems with the ABN-Amro bank
recently. The problems were, among others, caused by cultural differences. ABN-Amro arose from a
merger between Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and Amsterdam-Rotterdam Bank (Amro) (Smit
2009). In the board of directors there was, after many years, still a balance between former ABN and
former Amro bankers. This resulted in a large board of directors and the different cultures within the
bank were still present. Both parties tried to keep their business culture in the ABN-Amro. The cultural
differences were one of the reasons of the huge problems the bank has had recently. Communication
was difficult because the former ABN and former Amro bankers had different points of view on how the
ABN-Amro would operate, they had a different business culture (Smit 2009).
For Bonaire, to reach sustainable goals all stakeholders need to cooperate and engage in the
tourism processes (Cooper et al. 2005). Hence this includes the supply side and demand side of
tourism. To reach the sustainable goals there has to be clear and good communication between all
stakeholders and organizations. For Bonaire intercultural communication seems to be very important
and indispensable in their goal to be a sustainable destination. Not only because there will be a lot of
communication needed between the different stakeholders in the tourism industry, but also because it
is in the tourism industry. Tourism brings different cultures together, tourism means people travelling
and staying out of their home environment. This means that they leave their culture (home
environment) and meet other cultures. Another theme that makes tourism intercultural is the fact that
tourism brings about many people in various economic sectors together (Cooper et al. 2005). This
means that different economic sectors, with their different cultures, will communicate within the
process of tourism. Advantage for Bonaire can be that there are not many other economic sectors
present on the island and tourism is by far the main economic sector. How the research in the field
went, can be read in the next chapter, Methods.
22
“Ethnography refers primarily to a particular method or set of methods. In its most
characteristic form it involves the ethnographer, participating overtly or covertly, in
people‟s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens,
listening to what is said, asking questions – in fact collecting whatever data are
available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of research.” (in O‟Reilly,
2005: 2)
Methods
In this part the methods of research will be explained. In this research ethnographic methods are used.
Since this is the first ethnographic research for me, the research will not be fully ethnographic. Which
parts of ethnographic research are used are set out below.
Ethnographic research5
Ethnographic research has not one simple definition. In my opinion the following definition of
Hammersley and Atkinson is a good description to work with.
There are a lot of concepts and methods involving ethnography. O‟Reilly (2005) gives a list of
the minimum definition of ethnography. Since it is very hard to use the full definition in my first
ethnographic research I will touch upon this minimum definition. This includes the iterative-inductive
(O‟Reilly 2005) nature of research, family of methods, participant observation and open interviews, a
richly written account and reflexivity. These methods are the foundations of the research.
Ethnographic research also means that the research is in the context of the daily lives of the people
that are researched. These people and their culture should be treated with respect when the
researcher is in contact with them. According to O‟Reilly (2005) the researcher should be aware of
his/her own role and possible impact on the researched group.
Malinowski and Humphreys (in O‟Reilly, 2005) insist that an ethnographic research should not
begin with a fixed hypothesis. They state that a research has to start with a soft focus with vague and
flexible boundaries. This is called inductive research, but O‟Reilly (2005) prefers the term iterative-
inductive because this term indicates a complicated and extended research design which is flexible
and open to changes (O‟Reilly 2005). The definition of iterative is „Characterized by or involving
repetition, recurrence, reiteration, or repetitiousness‟ (Free dictionary 2009: website). This term is all
about repeating, starting over and repeating again. O‟Reilly (2005) describes an inductive approach to
a research as an approach where the researcher starts with as less theory as possible. The theory will
emerge from the data instead of the other way around. The opposite is called deductive approach.
Berg (in O‟Reilly 2005) calls this method „theory-before-research‟.
Ethnographers nowadays accept that a pure inductive approach is impossible. O‟Reilly (2005)
states that the best way to be inductive is to be open for changes and different opinions. And also to
read literature and collect some background information, but still be open for surprises. Ethnographers
5 For this part I used parts of a paper on qualitative research written by me in 2009
23
should not pretend that there is no theory, but they should see the research process as a period of
testing, retesting and collecting information all the time and repeating this process over and over again
(Willis and Trondman in O‟Reilly 2005). This is why O‟Reilly (2005) refers to the term iterative-
inductive approach. Using this kind of approach forces the researcher to design a research that is
open to fluidity and flexibility.
The research question did not emerge from theory read before the research started, but it
came out of personal interest. In the research process the question and methods were open for
flexibility and changes. I think that you can only tell, or be sure about something when you find it out or
experience it yourself. Therefore as I went into the field as a researcher I also tried to go native. In that
way I could see, feel and experience how things are on Bonaire. As I already said, to be sure you
have to experience it and not just read theory. Theories do work on paper, but it happens that it does
not work in practice. Therefore I cannot be sure about theory before I have experienced it myself.
Obviously some background, theoretical knowledge is needed to start from. But you must be open for
surprises and not exclude anything beforehand.
Using different methods during the research makes the research fluid and flexible. It is a
process of testing, retesting, building theory and using deductive and inductive approaches. This is
how family of methods reflects the iterative-inductive nature of ethnography. Using different methods
in the research will strengthen the research. Because then you will collect different viewing points on
the topic. Using different methods is worthwhile because the researcher explores different parts of a
process of a certain phenomenon. It can lead to different answers of the research questions or to the
same, but with different viewpoints. The methods that will be used in this research will be qualitative
methods. However quantitative information from other researches will not be ignored, when this
information is appropriate for the research. The methods that were used in this research are
(participant) observation, interviews and desk research. Using three different methods is called
triangulation or cross examination (O‟Reilly 2005).
For observing there are basically three options. Namely pure observation, partly participant
observation and totally participant observation. Ethnographic observation is an observation in its
natural setting, in contrast to experimental observation (O‟Reilly 2005). In this research mainly
participant ethnographic observation is used. Because the research is on scuba diving, it is very hard
to observe without participating. The information was gained while participating in a dive course and
various fun dives. During the dive courses I continually watched what happened, listened to what was
said and asked questions. During the observation the communication to the tourists was observed and
experienced. The dive-instructors and guides were the main subject of the observation. But the
reactions and actions of tourist were observed and used in the research as well. In this participant
observation I focused on how the dive-instructor communicated with the tourist concerning sustainable
development. Unfortunately I was the only participant in the diving course, so I could not observe the
communication between the instructor and other tourists. The observations are compared to what the
dive resort states they do in relation to sustainable development. People tend to tell that they do a lot
of things, however I know, from several experiences, in practice this is not always the case. During this
participant observation data is also collected through informal conversations.
24
The observed dive-instructor was also interviewed. Before the participant observation started I
informed the instructor about the fact that I was going to observe her. This may have influenced her
behavior a little but the instructor will appreciate to hear it before the observation starts instead of
afterwards.
For the interviews an open interview method is used. This means that there is a list of
questions prepared beforehand. However these questions are very much open to let the interviewee
tell stories, narratives. In doing so, the interviewer can switch and then new questions may arise and
be asked. The interview scheme is made to be changed during the interviews, which is a part of
ethnographic research (O‟Reilly 2005). The interview scheme is the guide for the interviews. In the
interviews I tried to search for narratives that illustrate the daily practice of diving tourism in Bonaire.
Desk research is done to support the research. Desk research means gathering data from
existing sources. These sources can be Internet, newspapers, official documents, magazines and
databases to name some examples. The advantage of desk research is that the researcher can gather
a lot of data in a short time. The researcher should be aware of outdated and incorrect data and
always have to verify if the data are correct. Another problem can be the lack of information regarding
the topic. Desk research is mostly used for background information for the research (O‟Reilly 2005). In
this research desk research is done to get some knowledge on the sustainable development of
Bonaire. It did also provide information of the island itself, so I was up to date on the daily practice of
Bonaire as much as possible. This is done through the website of the tourism board Bonaire (Tourism
Corporation Bonaire 2010: website) and a local forum about Bonaire (bonairetalk 2010: website).
Writing the end product is a part of ethnographic research. After finishing the observations and
interviews I coded the data. Parts of the interviews and observations were given a label. The labels
are divided into different codes. In that way data that seem alike are put together. The categories are
finally developed in themes. In this way an overview is made of the data (Strauss:1998). The codes
are analyzed and interpreted in order to come to a conclusion. In the analyses order comes into the,
what seems in the beginning, chaotic data. The researcher searches for relationships between
categories and the emerging of patterns. Mason (in O‟Reilly 2005) describes three different ways of
analyzing the data. Literal analyses are analyses in a literal form. Facts as for example the geographic
aspects of Bonaire are taken as they are. This means that what you see is what it is. With
interpretative analyses the researcher constructs the data in a way what he thinks the data mean or
represent. The researcher gives meaning to the data. For example in the participant observation,
things you see and hear are interpreted. But also in what people say, people may say what I wanted to
hear or what they wanted me to hear. The validity of the analyses can be compared with the use of
triangulation (O‟Reilly 2005). In reflexive analyses the researcher puts himself as a part of the data to
reflect on. For example a social relation, someone who is or became a friend can react different from
someone who is for example your employer. The social relation is different here (O‟Reilly 2005). In
ethnographic research usually all three types of analyses are used when analyzing the data. In that
way the data are analyzed at their best, because of the triangulation I referred to above. The three
different ways of analyzing can result in different outcomes, or the same with different viewpoints.
25
Important to note is that I, being the researcher, am the key player in the research. The researcher
gives meaning to the data and is the most important research tool (O‟Reilly 2005).
Presenting the data is not just writing it down as it is. It has to be an ethnographic
description. Writing down the analyses, interpretations and findings should be done by means of thick
description (O‟Reilly 2005). Thick description is describing beyond what you just literally see. Thick
description is connecting theory, basis of the interpretations, describing contexts and the way the
themes are developed and making an abundant description from it. While writing new things can be
found that influence or reflect on other parts of the research. It is an ongoing process of testing,
retesting and reflecting (O‟Reilly 2005). An important note to made is the fact that all participants of the
research will stay anonymous unless otherwise is mentioned. The participants are not only the people
who are interviewed and observed but also the informal conversations. Their names will be changed in
fictive names.
Research population
In this part I will explain who the respondents were of the research. People that I observed,
interviewed and people that I had informal conversations with.
People that I spoke informally with were mainly from the United States of America, Canada
and The Netherlands, I also spoke with somebody from New Zealand and a few from The Netherlands
Antilles. I was unable to speak with people from South America, because I cannot speak Spanish and
they could not speak English. However the tourists from South America were mainly cruise tourists
and did not dive, so they were therefore less important for the research. The age of the respondents
varied from 20 to 85 years old, most of them between 30 and 50 years old. There was not a big
difference between the amount of male or female respondents. The people that I will mention in the
results have fictive names for their anonymity, except three interviewees. For these persons their
positions and therefore their names are so obvious that it makes no sense to change the names. The
people that I have interviewed were people with a lot of influence or people with an important role in
the tourism or diving industry. Below I will elaborate on who I have interviewed and what their role is.
The first person I interviewed was Ramon de Leon, the manager of the Bonaire National
Marine Park and working for STINAPA. Ramon de Leon is from Uruguay and came to Bonaire in
1998. He is a marine biologist and worked in the diving industry for a long time. After being a dive
instructor he became the manager of the park in 2004. Ramon de Leon is his real name, because his
position is so obvious there is no need to change his name, everybody would still know who I spoke to
and who provided the information. Using his real name in the thesis was no problem for him. I had a
very relaxed interview with Ramon in his office at STINAPA headquarters. After a bike ride, fortunately
in the morning, of 20 minutes I was happy to enter his air-conditioned office. He said that he was very
busy but willing to make some time for the research.
The second and most joyful interview was with Captain Don Stewart. Captain Don Stewart is
an American who had lived on Bonaire since 1963. Captain Don is basically the founder of dive
tourism and marine protection on Bonaire. Therefore it is useless to change his name, this man is so
important for Bonaire that everybody in the industry knows him. The Captain was 85 years old at the
moment I met him. He is riding in an electrical wheelchair because one of his legs is partly amputated.
26
This wheelchair was brand new and he had just run into a wall a few days before our meeting,
therefore we had „only‟ 2 hours for the interview because the doctor came over to his house. Before
we started the conversation he proudly showed me his property. Captain Don started a landscape
business a few years ago. He showed me his plants, glasshouse, water tank and windmills. He
provides his own electricity and tap water. Captain Don lives together with his friend Janet Thibault.
Janet arranges the meetings with the Captain and cares for him when needed. Captain Don is the
greatest storyteller I have ever met, therefore I was not able to ask my prepared questions. We fell
from one story into the other, which was great and time flew by. In his stories I learned enough about
Captain Don for my research. The day before our meeting he came, with Janet Thibault, to my house
to give me one of his books. He wanted me to read a few chapters in his book, in this book he wrote a
personal note for me on the first page. I think I will never forget this meeting or Captain Don and I hope
I can show his importance for the island in the results. I will emphasizes his importance because I
think a lot of people forget his influence, or just do not know the stories behind the Marine Park and
the diving industry on Bonaire.
Another person that I to spoke was Ronella Croes who is the manager of the Tourism
Corporation Bonaire (from now on called; TCB). Because of her job it is also useless to change the
name of this respondent. Of course I have asked her permission to use her name in the research.
Croes was born in Aruba and followed a tourism study and a Master in Business Administration.
Currently she is the manager of the TCB and has been for the past 6 years. The interview was in her
office at the headquarters of the TCB. Ronella Croes comes gives the impression of being a smart
woman who has a lot of knowledge on tourism and marketing.
Duncan Green is one of the first dive instructors on Bonaire. He was born in the United States
of America and has lived for 37 years on Bonaire now. Currently he is the owner of Manta Dive, both
his name and his company name are changed for his anonymity. He specially asked for it a second
time during the interview after I already told him it would be anonymous. Green has a very outspoken
opinion on sustainability which will become clear in the results on sustainability. I had a very nice
conversation with Green in his air-conditioned office behind his diving shop. This was great because I
went to this meeting on foot which took me half an hour in the burning Caribbean sun. His wife and
dog joined the conversation occasionally.
Willem Boom is one of the owners of The Divers of Bonaire who I conducted an interview with.
Both his name and his company name were changed for his anonymity. I went diving a lot with this
company and this is also the company where I spent a lot of time so I already knew him a little. Before
I asked him for an interview he did not know about my research. Boom is a man who is living his
dream. 20 years ago he passed his diving instructor exam and mailed 10 diving schools around the
world.
There was only one madman who answered. (Willem Boom)
He booked a one-way ticket to Bonaire. He also went to California for half a year and 3 years to
Hawaii to work there as a diving instructor with his girlfriend. They broke up and he came back to
27
Bonaire. On Bonaire he started the business The Divers of Bonaire with his friend and now it is one of
the bigger dive resorts on the island. When you see him working and talking he seems to be a very
funny and not so serious a man. He is always joking, irritating people and telling great stories. But in
the interview he turned out to be a serious and dedicated man for the sustainability of Bonaire. He was
part of keeping Klein Bonaire protected and is a member of various groups who think about the future
of Bonaire. He is also a member of the Bonaire Sea Turtle Conservation. The quotes of Willem Boom
have been translated from Dutch to English.
Eric van Wemelen is the owner of Wateradventures and member of the Bonaire Turtle
Conservation. He was born in The Netherlands but fell in love with Bonaire and decided to startup a
business and live on the island ten years ago. Both his name and his company name are changed for
his anonymity. Wateradventures is a small business compared to most others. Van Wemelen likes to
keep it small, in that way he does not need a manager. The interview with van Wemelen was relatively
short, because his answers were almost the same as of the other dive resort owners. Eric van
Wemelen is also a member of the Bonaire Sea Turtle Conservation. The quotes of Eric van Wemelen
are translated from Dutch to English.
The last person I conducted an interview with was Jessica Velden. She is a dive instructor at
The Divers Bonaire with whom I dived a few times. Both her name and the company name has been
changed for her anonymity. She is from The Netherlands and has been working on Bonaire since a
few months. However in the past she visited Bonaire with her family many times and she knows
Bonaire pretty well. From this interview I could not collect a lot of data. I think this was mainly due to
the fact that we suddenly were in a „formal‟ setting which was for both of us a bit strange. The
interview did not go smoothly and we deviated from the topic a lot. The reason could be the fact we
knew each other already since we already had gone diving together. The shift from a friendly and
informal way of spending time it was suddenly a formal setting with a recorder and face to face
questions. In the participant observation, in which she also takes part, I could collect more data.
As an extra data source I have opened a thread on two different scuba diving forums on the
internet. The first is situated in The Netherlands and the second in The United States of America, both
belonging to the biggest forums in their country. For the anonymity of the forum members I will not
mention the websites or their members‟ names. On the Dutch forum there were a lot of reactions,
whereas the forum of the United States of America was a bit disappointing. The quotes of the Dutch
forum have been translated into English.
What the results were of the fieldwork with the above stated methods will be set out in the next
part.
28
Results
In this chapter I will present the results of the fieldwork. As can be read in the methods section, I used
various sources and methods to collect the data. The data are divided in subsections and within these
subsections some data will overlap.
Bonaire a divers’ paradise
Bonaire is an island, as I experienced myself, with very friendly people. On a DVD of the Tourism
Corporation Bonaire (2010: DVD) this is one of the first things that is said about Bonaire. This DVD is
a marketing tool of the Tourism Corporation Bonaire, also in the Dutch documentary Tropisch
Koninkrijk (Mouissie 2010) and a lot of people that I met on Bonaire said the same about the people of
Bonaire. After two weeks I really felt at home in Bonaire and not a tourist anymore. Since Bonaire is
relatively small and so friendly I got used to the environment very fast. The fact that a lot of people
speak Dutch also helps to get used to Bonaire. All the people that I interviewed were talking about
„Bonaire lovers‟. It seems that people who visit Bonaire love this place so much that they keep coming
back. Everybody will or has the desire to come back once to the island. In the interviews this was often
mentioned.
There are a lot of repeaters here on Bonaire, I have somebody who is here
for the 70th time. (Duncan Green, owner of Manta Dive)
Bonaire has a lot of Bonaire lovers who keep repeating visiting Bonaire.
There is a high rate of repeaters. They have a special relation with the place,
Bonaire is special in their life and they are special to Bonaire as well (Ramon
de Leon, Manager Bonaire National Marin Park)
This friendly vibe on Bonaire was already present in 1962 when Captain Don Stewart arrived at
Bonaire. Captain Don told me in an interview that he arrived with his sailboat and 63 cents US Dollars
on him. It was the first island where he did not have to pay to enter the harbor. The local people gave
him a beer and a very good feeling.
Writing this thesis already gives me the desire to go back, I think Bonaire is a very relaxed
place to live. Nobody seems to be in a hurry, the weather is good and the people are very nice and
hospitable. For me it was not so difficult to get used to the culture and adapt to it. The laid back way of
living is a way of life that suits me well. The fact that there are a lot of Dutch people on the island, most
of the locals speak Dutch and the supermarket looks very Dutch, made things easy. I guess the
hardest thing to get used to was the weather, which was quite a shock. Coming from a temperature of
below zero degrees Celsius and going to around 30 degrees was harsh. Not only that but coming from
a snowy winter wonderland and going to this hot and tropical island was also quite a change. The
island of Bonaire is more or less a village. When you walk the streets you always see people greeting,
horning or waving to each other. This gives a very hospitable feeling, people will greet you when you
walk by on the streets or wave to you while you are sitting in your garden. I always regret it that I
29
cannot experience this in The Netherlands. The laid back lifestyle comes back in the siesta that the
shops have every day and in the fact that when people say for example I will do that tomorrow, in the
end they will do it 2 or more days after tomorrow. This easy, laid back way of living could not bother
me, even though it affected me sometimes with appointments that were rescheduled several times or
electricity problems that had to be solved. I think I could deal with this because of just the person I am
and moreover because of the travel experiences in Indonesia in 2007 and 2009 where I got used to
this way of living.
Living on Bonaire also means you have to deal with island troubles. These troubles are
revealed in electricity problems, sometimes the power was down for half a day. Or water problems, I
experienced half a day without tap- , toilet- or shower water. Also when „the ship‟ as local people
called it was too late, the supermarket became a bit empty and products were out of stock for days.
Bonaire breaths scuba diving, everywhere you see signs of the islands main tourist attraction.
For the research I went scuba diving in the form of participant observation, but I did a lot more dives
than initially planned because I became really addicted to this sport. I had to limit the amount of diving
because my budget did not allow any more diving and I had to spend some time on the surface for the
rest of the research of course.
Captain Don Stewart
Captain Don bought his 70 foot schooner, the „Valery Queen‟, to rent it out in Hollywood to Universal
Studios. He had written a script for a movie, and Universal told him that they needed a ship for his
script. So he bought one, but in the end they were going to shoot a movie about skiing and not about
sailing, adventures and women. When he asked what he should do with the ship, they told him to live
the script. And that is what he did till he arrived on Bonaire. He sailed the Caribbean and rented the
ship out for day trips. When Captain Don sailed out in 1960 it was his first time sailing. He had no clue
what he was doing, therefore he had someone on board to help him. I think this represents the
Captain, he is in for adventures and very impulsive. However he is able to survive his impulsiveness
because he believes in himself and is a very creative man. Captain Don Stewart is currently 85 years
old and after he broke a leg and it did not recover well so that it had to be amputated, he buried the
amputated leg in a purple pyramid on the cemetery. He looks like a retired pirate, but he is not a sailor
he says. He is a California boy. Captain Don is not a good interviewee, however he is one of the best
story tellers I have met. Therefore I used some extra sources in this part. As Willem Boom (owner of
The Divers of Bonaire) mentioned in an interview.
80 percent of what he says is bullshit, 20 percent is brilliant
For me the challenge is to look for that 20 percent. But in the „bullshit‟ part is also information included,
I have to take that information with a grain of salt of course. When I asked Captain Don why Bonaire is
called divers‟ paradise, he looked at me and said,
30
Do you think we can sell a rainforest here!? Have you been diving?! How
else would you call it, there is nothing else. And it is because I said so!
(Captain Don Stewart, founder of diving tourism in Bonaire).
This statement did not seem a point of discussion for the Captain.
After he discovered the marine life, Captain Don was the first to start in the diving business on
Bonaire. With Aquaventure he started the first pure diving business on Bonaire and maybe in the
world. He found out that nobody liked divers, so he decided to build his own hotel for divers. For the
total dive freedom, and that is what makes Bonaire so special according to all the interviewees,
Bonaire is dive freedom. Captain Don saw diving as an industry and started to develop it as a tourism
attraction for Bonaire. The Captain is a very creative man, he used everything he could to achieve his
goals (Katzev, P & Katzev, L 2004: documentary). And so he did to promote the island. The Captain
came in contact with a cartoonist of a New York newspaper. He was able to make the cartoonist
enthusiastic for diving and for Bonaire that he was willing to write a cartoon, see figure 3, about the
Captain. Bonaire has not had that big media exposure since that cartoon (Katzev, P & Katzev, L 2004:
documentary).
Figure 3 (infobonaire 2010: website)
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When Captain Don was watching a spear fishing contest in front of his dive school and saw all
the dead fish on the beach he decided to protect the sea. This is in fact the day, august 13 1963, that
the Captain realized he had to protect Bonaire‟s marine life, and ironically also the day that the Valery
Queen sank. This led to Captain Don protecting the sea with his life. He drove with a car over spear
guns in his campaign to ban spear fishing. He literarily put people on a plane who did not respect him
and the protection of the marine life. He also started a fight with a tourist because he took a piece of
„his‟ coral. Carel Steenbergen, a well known KLM pilot, saw this fight and asked the Captain what
happened. After Don explained that the tourist took and damaged coral and would not listen to him,
Carel Steenbergen asked him if he really thought the marine life should be protected. Of course
Captain Don Stewart answered with yes. Carel Steenbergen was a friend of Dutch Prince Bernhard
and asked him for help (Katzev, P & Katzev, L 2004: documentary). And Prince Bernhard called the
WWF (Captain Don 2009). This is how the National Park started on Bonaire, more about this topic can
be read in subsection „Sustainability and sustainable tourism‟. The WWF is still involved with
STINAPA, the national parks foundation.
Captain Don owned several dive resorts and at this moment Captain Don‟s Habitat is one of
the biggest dive resorts on Bonaire. The Captain is not involved in this business anymore. At the age
of almost 80 years old he started a new business. He grows plants in his big garden and glass house
for all the hotels on the islands. Proud as he was, he showed this to me when I visited him for the
interview. Then I realized what a hard working man this is. The day before the interview he gave me
his new book where he describes the stories behind the names of the dive spots. He asked me to read
a few chapters before I came to his house for the interview.
Captain Don Stewart named almost all dive spots on the island and has been the driving force
behind the dive tourism on Bonaire. And simultaneously he did his utmost for the protection of the
marine life on Bonaire and inspiration of marine life protection worldwide (Katzev, P & Katzev, L 2004:
documentary). Building Bonaire as a dive destination was done through hoopla as Captain Don calls
it. Hoopla is a bustling excitement or activity, I think he meant that you have to work with a lot of
pleasure and fun to be successful. And I honestly believe that Captain Don did everything he did with
a lot of pleasure and fun. In that way he inspired many people, people who he needed to succeed in
what he was doing.
All I can say is thank you Captain Don, for protecting this wonderful piece of wildlife!
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Divers‟ Paradise
Bonaire, a divers‟ paradise because Captain Don Stewart said so. But is it really a divers‟ paradise?
The people who I interviewed thought so, as can be seen in the statements made by owners of a dive
resort.
Wherever you fall of the rocks, it is all good (Willem Boom).
It is like diving in a big aquarium (Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive)
The perfect underwater conditions, the dive freedom and the professionalism of the dive resorts
complete Bonaire as a divers‟ paradise as all the interviewees mentioned. “Bonaire breaths diving”
said the manager of the tourism board. There are even drive-in spots to pick up a scuba tank. The
resorts are professional because diving, and snorkeling, are the only business they practice, except
the hotel itself. There are no other water sports or services they offer, an interviewee told me that for
example in Hawaii there are business that offer a lot of leisure related services including diving. In that
way the focus is less on diving and therefore it has not grown to the level of professionalism as it has
on Bonaire. Duncan Green compared the professionalism of the diving in Bonaire with skiing in the
Alps.
You go to the Alps and ski that‟s it, you go to Bonaire to dive. It is like diving
in a big aquarium, you can dive just off the shore and the whole year around.
(Duncan Green, the owner of Manta Dive and one of the first dive instructors
on the island)
According to the dive school manager of The Divers of Bonaire, the government protects the dive
resorts. There are about 15 dive resorts on Bonaire, and that is limited. In that way Bonaire protects its
professionalism, not everybody can say that he or she is/has a dive resort.
The fact that these businesses only practice diving is not only positive. Some of the
interviewed people mentioned that the tourism basis is very limited. If for some reason diving is not
possible anymore on Bonaire the whole tourism industry will collapse.
Tourism
During my tourism study I already learned that tourism can be a hard and difficult business. Therefore
I liked the statement of Duncan Green from Manta Dive a lot.
Tourism is like fire, it can cook your food but also burn down your house.
This is one of the reasons that Green likes to work in tourism, it is always a challenge to stay on the
side of ´it can cook your food´. After the field research I realized Bonaire is facing a period where they
have to make the right decisions for the future.
33
Cruise tourism
Several people mentioned the fact that Bonaire has a small basis for tourism because they are so
focused on diving. With cruise tourism Bonaire has another source of income through tourism, but this
source is not supported by everybody on the island which causes some tensions. During the first
weeks of my field research on the island I spoke to a lot of people in informal conversations. The
research was often a topic we spoke about because everybody asked what I was doing on the island
or where I worked. The cruise tourists and cruise tourism seemed not to be the favorite of everybody.
They come on the island, shit, and leave
as Bob said to me. With this statement Bob, who is Dutch and has lived on Bonaire for 18 years now,
meant that the cruise tourists are not really good tourists. They leave their garbage on the island and
leave there money in their pocket, because they have an all inclusive holiday on the cruise ship. There
are some people on the island who profit from the cruise ships. Mostly taxi drivers and souvenir shops.
This negative vibe that I felt during the first weeks in informal conversations fed my own image on
cruise tourism. Within two weeks I felt not like a tourist anymore and started to feel annoyed by the
cruise tourists. Because it became very busy in town, in the supermarket and on the two beaches that
the island has when there was a cruise ship in the harbor. While on the days when there was not a
cruise ship in the harbor, everything was peaceful and quiet. Bob thinks that cruise tourism will result
in more waste, more crime and that they will scare the other tourists away. Bob was not the only one
that has this opinion on cruise tourism. A lot of people that I met on Bonaire shared this opinion and in
some interviews that I conducted this negative opinion was shared. Duncan Green was very direct in
his opinion on cruise tourists;
I hate them, I absolutely hate them!
He told me that he had done some research on cruise tourism and found out that on several islands
this kind of tourism was bad for those islands. It has a big impact on the locals and the other tourists.
Green made a comparison;
Let‟s say a cruise ship passenger spends 50 dollars, and that‟s a lot. Do you
want 100 people spending 50 dollars or do you want two people spending
500 dollars? Which one do you want? Which gives a better quality of life?”
and he added to this, referring to the cruise tourists “I absolutely hate them,
hate them! (Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive)
Green‟s wife sometimes joined the interview and she said that there was only one thing that would
keep the cruise ships away for a while, a terrorist attack. She said this almost with hope, this shows
how deep the aversion against cruise tourism is for some people. She also told me that a shop on the
„Kaya Grandi‟, which is the main road, told her that the cruise ship tourists were
the kiss of death.
34
They call them this way because they enter the shop in great numbers and scare others away while
they often just look and do not buy. Another thing that made people mad is the fact that the fee that
cruise ships have to pay is rather low compared to other Caribbean islands. I was warned by many
people that the Tourism Corporation Bonaire (TCB) would not say a negative word about cruise
tourism. And that they would like to have more ships and more cruise tourist. However, surprisingly the
first positive word about cruise tourism was in the interview with Willem Boom of The Divers of
Bonaire. He said that the cruise tourists are different tourists. They miss the education that every other
tourist gets when they go diving or snorkeling. This is called a check dive, which is mandatory when
entering the marine park. But when almost 3000 tourists come off the ship it is impossible to do that.
Nonetheless he thinks that cruise tourism has a low impact on the nature of Bonaire, because a ship
has its own sewerage system. And Bonaire does not have to build hotels for these kind of tourists.
When I confronted him that he was the first to mention a positive word about this topic he said that
people do not judge it honestly. He said that in economic terms cruise tourism can be destructive for
small communities as it happened on Cozumel and Sint Maarten. However Boom said that on the
other hand cruise tourism is the first where locals participate in. Like a taxi driver who earns around a
100 dollar on a „cruise day‟. Because of cruise tourism there is a chance for the locals to work in the
tourism and they are happy with it. In diving and surfing there are very few locals who participate. The
participation is mostly that they go windsurfing by themselves, and not having a job in the business
itself. According to Boom the lower rated jobs like housekeeping are not for the locals either. These
people come from other countries like Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. Locals do not
participate in diving even though there has been a program to stimulate the locals to go diving. They
could get certificated for free and dive for free on Wednesdays, but this was far from a success. There
are plans to try this again in the near future.
Ronella Croes, director of the TCB, as I was already told, also had positive words on cruise
tourism. First of all she said that the TCB has to attract the right tourist, because she thinks not every
tourist fits Bonaire. Cruise tourism has increased a lot the last few years on Bonaire and there is a stop
of cruise ships right now. Croes says that Bonaire has to work hard on product development.
We would like the tourists to experience the space and freedom that Bonaire
has to offer and no crowds (Ronella Croes, director TCB).
According to Croes there is a clash between cruise tourism and dive tourism, the challenge is to
stimulate and promote both kinds of tourism. The people of Bonaire would like to see more cruise
ships “but we say no” (Ronella Croes). I confronted her with the fact that I experienced a very negative
vibe on cruise tourism. She said
Other people would like to see the cruise tourism disappear from Bonaire.
But they do not have the problem of no bread on the table. The locals want
even more cruise tourism because these people often do not profit of dive
tourism like the taxi drivers. The next 20 years there will be no growth on
cruise tourism. There is enough space to let the two different kind of tourist
35
enjoy the island and not clash anymore. We have to offer more activities
(Ronella Croes, director TCB).
Croes also mentioned the fact that the cruise passengers have paid since last year. So they earn more
money to develop activities for the cruise tourists. However a dive master that I met during my
fieldwork said to me that the fee that the passengers pay is quite a bit lower than for example on
Curacao or Aruba.
Other tourism
Bonaire is not a busy island. Not only the vibe is relaxed and quiet but there are not many tourist
around. The divers are mostly underwater, however since there are 86 official dive spots there is
plenty of space for the divers. The bars and restaurants are not crowded at all, except on Friday when
the locals go out for dinner and for a drink. Since the cruise tourists did already leave on their ship, the
mass is gone. There was only one period I encountered a lot of tourists, this was during the American
spring break. The hotels were full and it was busy in town. But there was still enough space for
everybody. Bonaire does not have large hotels, so the possible crowd is always a bit spread.
Bonaire is not only visited by cruise tourists and divers, however this is the biggest group.
According to Ronella Croes, Bonaire tries to attract other tourists as well. She says that Bonaire is
trying to be attractive to non divers in their marketing. According to her Bonaire is also attractive to
people who like to go snorkeling, enjoy the nature and quietness, mountain biking and other water
sports. Water sports are kite boarding and windsurfing on Bonaire there are a lot of high level
windsurfers and windsurf competitions. However the TBC does not promote windsurfing very much. It
promotes itself Ronella Croes says. Through forums and word of mouth publicity windsurfers and kite
boarders get to know Bonaire. However not everybody seems to be happy with this. Duncan Green
told me that the kite boarders were banned of Lac Cai at the east coast of Bonaire (see figure 2 on
page 10). They were too dangerous in combination with the windsurfers. Because of the constant
onshore wind the kite boarders were literally thrown on the beach when they made a mistake. They
got their own piece of ocean to practice their sport. But at the expense of three dive spots.
Nobody is going to dive there anymore, nobody wants the risk of their head
getting chopped of (Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive and one of the first
instructors on Bonaire).
The thing that made Green mad was the fact that the divers association was not asked about this. He
thinks this is an example of the TCB that only wants to grow and does not take into account the
importance of the number one business (Duncan Green owner of Manta Dive). The TCB denies this,
Croes says that they want to grow. But a very controlled grow is needed and mass tourism is ruled
out. She wants a controlled and stable grow for Bonaire. However she is from Aruba and there she
also worked in tourism. She said that Bonaire does not want to be another Aruba. However Duncan
Green said that because Croes is from Aruba he is scared that she wants to turn Bonaire in another
36
Aruba and is only focused on more tourists, more money and does not care about the people of
Bonaire. More about these cultural differences can be read in the intercultural communication part.
Croes thinks that because Bonaire is going to be a part of The Netherlands more Dutch
people will visit Bonaire. She also thinks that Bonaire is going to be more attractive for The United
States of America because the US dollar will be currency after January first 2011. I seriously doubt
that because all Americans already pay in dollars, which are accepted everywhere. At the ATM people
can choose between US Dollars and Antillean Guilders. However change is always given in Antillean
Guilders.
During my stay on the island I also participated in other branches of tourism besides diving.
During my kayak trip in the mangrove forest of Lac Cai the guide gave us a briefing before we entered
the forest. This briefing was very much focused on the importance of the mangrove forest and the urge
to protect it. Also during a trip into different caves I was provided with information concerning Bonaire‟s
environment. The guide told us the importance of for example bats that live in the caves for Bonaire‟s
eco system. While snorkeling in a wet cave we had to break the trip because the guide smelled
something weird. He thought that something had collapsed in the cave because of the houses that
were built on top of it and that the water was polluted. He was seriously mad about this.
So not only in the diving industry but also in other parts of the tourism industry sustainability is
needed, in order to keep Bonaire protected and an attractive tourism destination. In the next part I will
elaborate on sustainability and sustainable tourism.
Sustainability and sustainable tourism
This part of the results is about sustainability and sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism is one of
the main concepts of the thesis. However I encountered several important events and facts that are
not especially tourism related but nevertheless important for the thesis. Therefore I also included
sustainability in general in the results. I also wrote a part of my own experience while I went diving. In
the part about „Captain Don Stewart‟ I have set out a little bit of the emergence of the sustainability on
Bonaire. The result of the Captain‟s efforts is The Bonaire Marine National Park which is a subdivision
of STINAPA.
STINAPA
STINAPA is the National Parks Foundation of Bonaire (Stichting Nationale Parken). This includes the
Washington Slagbaai National park and Bonaire National Marine Park. The last one is most important
for the research because the Marine Park has the most influence on the dive tourists. Therefore I
conducted an interview with the manager of the Marine Park, Ramon de Leon. The job of STINAPA is
to manage the marine park; their main activities are maintenance, education, law enforcement and
various monitoring programs. The Bonaire Marine Park was the first marine park in the world where
you had to pay an entrance fee (Ramon de Leon, manager Bonaire Marine Park). This entrance fee is
paid in the form of a „Bonaire Marine Park tag‟. For divers the tag costs 25 dollars and for all other
water sports 10 dollar and both are valid for one year. Duncan Green and Willem Boom believe this
discrepancy in the fee is very strange, they do not understand this, because they believe other water
37
sports practitioners have the same impact on the park. The tag can be bought at all dive resorts, TCB
office and all hotels. With this money the Marine Park provides its own financial resources.
The Marine Park includes all waters around Bonaire and Klein Bonaire the 60 meters or 200
feet depth contour. There are park rangers who control and maintain the rules of the park. There are
various rules for the park, the obligation to have the marine park tag is one. You have to carry this with
you when entering the park, which means entering the water. Also, for divers it is not allowed to dive
with hand gloves. Through this rule Bonaire wants to avoid divers grabbing everything underwater.
Without hand gloves picking up parts of the reef or holding on to the reef is more dangerous. The
divers risk to get bitten by venomous animals or stung by toxic coral. The patrols are by car and by
boat, Ramon de Leon told me with disappointment that he does not have enough staff at the moment
to patrol as much as he wants to. None of the park rangers controlled me during my stay. But Ramon
de Leon is happy with the effort of local people and dive instructors who help STINAPA with
controlling. Every day they get calls of somebody who sees something illegal. The park rangers will
react on it immediately. Some examples of illegal events are according to de Leon:
Boat is going in the wrong way, divers diving with gloves, fishing in the
forbidden area.
He said that most delinquents are residents but also tourists. Fishing is allowed in the park but not
everywhere and the fishing boat has to be very small (Ramon de Leon, manger Bonaire Marine Park).
The fishing boats that I saw were barely big enough for 4 people, mostly there was just one fisherman
per boat. Willem Boom said that the Bonaire Marine Park is an example, a model for other marine
parks, but the fact that fishing is allowed is not good at all. He made a comparison;
When you compare the park to a famous land park, Serengeti for example.
Would it not be ridiculous when I walk there and shoot elephants, giraffes
and buffalo‟s?” But fishing is allowed in the marine park, which is very
strange. The fisherman get a subsidy from the government, it is pure politics.
The idea of the national park is very good, but a discrepancy as mentioned
above is strange.
The overall opinion on STINAPA is positive. I think this is very logical because they are protecting
nature which seen in the overall picture is a good thing. However there are some comments made on
STINAPA as is shown above by Willem Boom. Ronella Croes said that some locals think that
STINAPA works too much from one edge. They do not like the fact that they cannot fish everywhere
for example. Hotels are sometimes critical on new rules that come from STINAPA. Croes thinks that
these kind of clashes are normal within a society. Not everybody can be satisfied. I agree on that but I
also agree with Willem Boom and his comparison with the Serengeti National Park. In a forum on
diving I have opened a thread on the sustainability of Bonaire. One forum member was critical on the
sustainable diver because the same diver that is acting according to all rules, will have endangered
38
fish like red snapper and tuna for dinner (forum member of a Dutch dive forum). This is available
because of the fisherman on the island.
Sustainability
I have encountered a lot of positive and negative events and facts in the field work on Bonaire
considering sustainability. One of the first things I noticed were signs on the windows of several hotels
that said „turn off the airco‟. In this way tourists were stimulated to turn off the air conditioning when
they left the hotel room. However I did not live in a hotel and the sign even worked for me. Although I
did not have an air conditioning, when I came home and noticed that I had forgotten to turn off my fan I
already felt guilty. In several brochures and advertisements people were stimulated to drink tap water
instead of bottled water. Bonaire has its own water purifier and the water is fresh and clean. I believe it
tastes better than Dutch tap water. Still I saw and heard about tourists that did not trust the tap water
and asked for bottled water. These were all Americans and not experienced divers. This is maybe
because they did not know Bonaire before they booked their holiday and were a bit too careful.
For the sustainable development for Bonaire there is a windmill park developed in the northern
part of Bonaire, at the moment I was conducting my fieldwork the windmills were not working yet. This
was not because of the lack of wind, the trade wind is present almost every day. In the spring of 2010
the park should be running but there are several problems with the windmills. These windmills will
provide 50% of the energy for Bonaire. According to Ronella Croes, Bonaire would like to go over to
100% sustainable energy. This could be done through more windmills but Croes said that there is a
research pending which looks into the possibility for generating energy through algae. This would be a
worldwide breakthrough. It would be very good for Bonaire to switch to this kind of energy.
When I drove to a dive spot in the north of the island one day, somebody told me that the
factory that provides energy there runs on heating oil.
Speaking of your research, that fabric runs on heating oil. How sustainable
can it be? (dive master of The Divers of Bonaire)
This is very bad for nature and a bit old fashioned. Duncan Green also spoke about a somewhat old
fashioned Bonaire. He said that Bonaire was ahead of its time with the marine park and other
initiatives. But Green and his wife think Bonaire does not keep up with the rest of the world any more
on nature protection. According to the interviews with Boom and Croes I think Bonaire has a lot of
plans to close the gap and introduce more sustainable operations. But there is a long way to go. The
fact that there are things that have to be improved or changed came up in some of the interviews.
Boom and van Wemelen are members of the Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire, they both told me that
a few years ago there was a sort of herpes virus that is called „pripopapiloma‟ which causes cancer for
the turtles (Willem Boom).
39
This was caused by pollution. The pollution comes from the dumpsite on Bonaire. A lot of turtles died
because of this disease. Willem Boom was visibly affected by this when he told me this anecdote,
It sucks.
This dumpsite is often mentioned by the people of Bonaire I spoke with. Nothing is separated, toxic
products are dumped between all the other garbage. The problem with an island like this is that all
products that enter the island never leave. It is obvious that Bonaire has to change its policy regarding
this dumpsite. People also asked the question if this is legal according to European norms, since
Bonaire is going to be a part of The Netherlands and therefore part of Europe. Another thing that
Boom told me is the fact that there are too many gaps in the law system.
It is not allowed, unless.... no you cannot build there, „here 100.000 dollar
under the table‟, oh yeah you can build there.
He told me that there is a permit to restore the coastline of the east coast. Under that permit they are
digging four meters of sand away of the whole coastline. This shocks Boom because this could be
devastating to the nature. Sand is dynamic, sand goes away now but never comes back anymore.
It could be a disaster. If the gaps in the law system stay present it will be
never sustainable, it is beyond the government, and they cannot stop it
(Willem Boom).
Another problem that was mentioned often by the interviewees and other persons is the fact
that Bonaire does not have a proper sewerage. Toilets are almost literally flushing directly into the sea,
and there are many toilets (Boom, Green, Captain Don and van Wemelen). A proper sewerage system
is too expensive for Bonaire, the respondents hope that The Netherlands are going to help on this
point. Captain Don even said that there could be a cholera epidemic if it does not change because the
water gets polluted. This is a bit overdone but it underlines the problems on Bonaire. Duncan Green
(owner Manta Dive and one of the first instructors on the island) is very critical about sustainable
development and sustainable tourism. He made a great metaphor.
I do not like the word sustainable development. Because how can you keep
developing and sustain? If you want to develop your muscles, how far can
you go? Can you sustain the development of your body? Developing,
developing and developing and it will collapse on itself, look how far General
Motors grew! This is also happening on Bonaire, investors want more, hotels
have to be bigger. I do not like that and it was never like that. Everything was
working fine. I have a good car, everything is good. Then I changed the tires
now it runs not so good. I change the motor now it does not run so good. I
40
put new seats in it now it is not so comfortable anymore. Why do not you just
let it go. It was working, everybody was happy. Now we have social
problems in schools, crime is sky rocking. I just do not like sustainable
development.
It seems that Duncan Green does not like the combination of sustainability and development.
He thinks it should be one or the other. He would love to see a Bonaire as it was years ago. That
Bonaire sustained the way it was at that moment. But it is too late for that. For now Duncan Green
hopes Bonaire will not develop more because he and his wife think that
Sustainable development is the opposite of evolution.
I thinks this statement means that they believe that sustainable development is counterproductive on
Bonaire.
Sustainable tourism
The metaphor of Duncan Green above shows his opinion on sustainability but also how he works in
tourism. For him sustainable tourism means that his company does not grow any larger. On financial
basis he could be a much bigger resort but he does not want that since it is bad for nature and
because he is happy right now. There is no support from the government to have sustainable ways of
operating. Solar panels and windmills are not subsidized. Duncan Green (owner Manta Dive) told me
that once somebody wanted to build a windmill at his hotel but the government did not approve of it.
According to Green this is all a political affair. Because, for example the man who has to approve of
the windmills has a brother who has a business in „normal‟ energy. Green said, with amazement, that
he read in the newspaper that there was going to be a study if solar panels and windmills would be
feasible on Bonaire.
A study?! Stick your head out the window, it‟s windy and there is sun.
Feasibility study is over.
The first that was not sustainable in tourism I noticed a few days after my arrival on Bonaire. I went to
a dive shop to buy a snorkel and mask. They gave it to me in a plastic bag, this surprised me because
I had a very sustainable image of Bonaire. Even the supermarket had paper bags and for example in
The Netherlands there are several surf shops in Scheveningen that have paper bags. I think these
small actions can be big in a process to a sustainable world. Every week there was a barbeque night
at the hotel of this dive shop that belongs to The Divers of Bonaire. In busy weeks there were up to a
hundred people visiting the barbeque and all eating from plastic plates with plastic cutlery. That this
happens in Bonaire amazed me because at that time I still had the image of Bonaire as a sustainable
island. When I talked with dive masters and dive instructors about my research they reacted a bit
surprised and some of them laughed because in their opinion Bonaire is not a sustainable tourist
41
destination. These events all happened in the first two weeks of my research and I became insecure
about my research. In my desk research I had found out that Bonaire is promoted as a sustainable
destination. For example in the TCB annual marketing meeting the TCB is talking about “the mission is
predicated upon the philosophy that Bonaire‟s tourism development must be based on the core guide
philosophy, growth while maintaining nature and culture” and “respecting Bonaire‟s nature, culture and
identity” (TCB 2010: website). They even mention “Developing a Sustainable Bonaire” (TCB 2010:
website). On the website of the TCB you can read that Bonaire has won the sustainable tourism award
in the Caribbean in 2008. I asked in my interviews if the respondents knew why Bonaire had won the
award. Van Wemelen (owner dive resort) and Velden (dive instructor) did not even know Bonaire had
won the award. Ramon de Leon (manager Bonaire Marine Park) said
Honestly I‟m not interested in that it is all commercial. Bonaire does not do
sustainable tourism. Bonaire is doing better than everybody else but not
sustainable tourism. It needs to change and fast.
And Willem Boom,
There are several problems that need to be solved because right now you
cannot speak of sustainable tourism.
Ramon de Leon thinks that the dive industry on Bonaire needs to become even more professional.
The staff needs to get the right tools and information to accomplish the law of environmental protection
which they are not doing right now. He thinks that the main stakeholder of STINAPA, which is the
diving industry, helps them a lot, even more than anywhere else on the world ,but it still needs to be
more involved. The main stakeholder is of course the diving industry. Ramon de Leon also said that
when you protect the sea you also need to protect the land. The land is not really protected outside
the Washington Slagbaai National Park. There is a lot of dust that flies into the sea (Ramon de Leon,
manager Bonaire National Marine Park). The dust is really a problem. I lived near the sea and my
porch was dusty everyday even though I wiped it regularly with a broom. Willem Boom (owner The
Divers of Bonaire, member of various working groups) also said that Bonaire is not practicing
sustainable developed at the moment. His argument is that the underlying infrastructure is not good
enough. He believes that there should not be built one more house before there is a proper sewerage
system. Otherwise things will turn out wrong for Bonaire. When I asked Duncan Green if he had any
idea why Bonaire won the sustainable tourism award 2008 he asked me.
Who‟s gonna hear all this stuff?
42
When I explained him again that it would be anonymous he said the following.
If I told you I was the smartest person in the world and keep telling you that
and kept promoting that and it is in the newspaper you will believe it. It is all
promotion. Bonaire does a good job. There a lot of people who want to do a
good job, like STINAPA. But also a lot of people who fight it. But if you are
telling everybody your are wonderful everybody will believe it, which is the
problem there is al lot of hypocrisy.
The problems that the interviewees came up with were also mentioned by a lot of others. Tourists and
residents that I spoke to during my stay often mentioned the problems with a proper sewerage system,
the waste dump and the political issues and problems. Other issues that were mentioned by tourists in
the field and members of the dive forums were that fact that Bonaire could never be an example for
sustainable tourism. There argument is that you have to fly to the island which has a huge impact on
nature (forum members American and Dutch dive forum). Members of the Dutch dive forum agreed
with each other that the accommodation have to implement more sustainable operations. The whole
opinion between tourists was a bit divided, some were very negative and others were reasonably
positive. However they all agreed that Bonaire has to improve its sustainability before it can promote
itself as a sustainable destination.
I also asked Ronella Croes (manager TCB) why Bonaire had won the award. She said that the
TCB nominated itself because of the Bonaire National Marine Park. She also said that there are plans
being made to be focused on diving but also more and more on positioning Bonaire as a sustainable
destination for all kinds of tourists. This answer surprised me because people, including me, already
had the feeling that Bonaire promotes itself as a sustainable destination. Her argument was that
Bonaire has taken steps in the last years with the national parks and the protection of the nature and
the sustainable energy project.
It seems that Bonaire has just started to be a sustainable destination and implementing
sustainable tourism. With regard to the plans of providing sustainable energy as I already mentioned,
Croes also told me that there are plans to let the tourists that visits Bonaire compensate its carbon
CO2 footprint by planting plants and trees. Another thing that Croes said about Bonaire‟s future is that
she hopes that the tourist gets a more sustainable image of Bonaire through the communication and
marketing. But does she want Bonaire to be sustainable or does she want Bonaire to have a
sustainable image to the rest of the world?
I think Bonaire is lucky with dive tourists as their main visitors. Divers are naturally aware of
the impact on nature and more willing to protect nature. Because their tourist attraction is nature they
know that when they pollute it, their attraction will be less attractive or even disappear. Of course there
are exceptions but the mass of the dive tourists are nature aware (Willem Boom, dive forums, Eric van
Wemelen, tourists on Bonaire and Jessica Velden). It was pleasant to hear that Bonaire is introducing
programs to get the locals become more aware of their pristine nature. There are programs for locals
to have the opportunity to dive for free, in that way the locals can see with their own eyes what is there
43
(Willem Boom, owner The Divers of Bonaire). There are also programs at schools to educate the local
children in nature protection and the need for it (Ronella Croes, manager TCB). In that sense Bonaire
will try to change the mentality of the locals, that they know what they protect and more important why.
In my travel experience I have locals polluting their environment seen many times while tourist come
to their country to enjoy the special and pristine nature. For a local his environment is like another day
at the office, often these countries are underdeveloped countries where the locals miss the education
and knowledge of the impact of their behavior and nature protection.
Diving „Rappel‟
It is a beautiful Wednesday morning and I woke up early. I had to be present at the dive school, which
was a 20 minute walk away, at 08.30. I was on for the boat dive with The Divers of Bonaire. Diving is
great but also a part of my research. I geared up while still waking up a bit under the sun of the
Caribbean. There were a few people that I already knew who went on the same boat dive. Some of
them go every Wednesday morning so it seemed to be a great morning with experienced and fun
people. The guide for this morning was one of the owners of The Divers of Bonaire, a very
experienced dive instructor and very enthusiastic man. After a gear check we were ready to sail away
to the dive spot. The dive spot of today is „Rappel‟ which has a very nice reef. It was the second time
for me to go to Rappel. Rappel is named, as almost all dive spots, by Captain Don. The name comes
from „rappelling‟, another word for abseiling, which indicates where the name comes from. In 1974
Captain Don went with Duncan Green and his friend, who was a professional in rappelling, to the
north-western part of the island. Duncan Green came up with an idea after combining the thoughts of
a professional in rappelling with Bonaire. Due to the cliffs that are present there Captain Don was
unable to dive the sites on the north-western part of the island. With the rappel technique it could be
possible to enter the waters below the cliff. They went to the cliff en tried to rappel the cliff with all the
dive gear on. It was a success and turned out to be one of the most magnificent reefs of Bonaire. A
new dive site was born (Captain Don, 2009).
When you slowly enter the mooring of the dive site it becomes obvious why Captain Don,
Duncan Green and his friend rappelled this site, nobody could enter this site without a boat or
rappelling down the sheer cliff. The only possibility was jumping from a height of 10 meters into the
water, which is very dangerous with all the dive gear strapped on. The next problem would be getting
out of the water. After the first time I dove Rappel I read the story of Captain Don naming this dive
spot. This second time his story came to life in my head. The guide turned out to be the only one who
rappelled the site after Captain Don and his friends did it. The first time this site was rappelled can be
seen on figure 4.
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Figure 4 (Captain Don 2009)
Before we entered the water the guide briefed us for the dive. He asked if everybody had his
marine tag with him. After that he said
Since I have not been diving with you all I would like to have a quick
buoyancy check under the boat. After that you are free to go but I have one
rule. When diving you have to stay at least this distance above the reef, so
you will not touch the reef, remember that!
When he said „this distance‟ he extended his arm down. While diving you lay in the water like
swimming so the distance to the reef should be always an arm length according to him. It was an extra
reminder to dive with respect for the nature. After 70 minutes underwater, and a great dive, I entered
the boat with the last people of the group. While eating candy, for extra sugars, we sailed back to the
dive school. The garbage of the candies were collected by one of the divers, everybody was just
waiting for the collection with his or her lollypop stick or package. Slowly I started to realize that almost
all divers, including me, are environmentally aware. With the extra reminder of the guide I thought it
was a good example of a sustainable dive but not really forced by the government or STINAPA. In this
example it seemed to go well without communication between the different parties. How the
communication on the island went will be set out below.
Intercultural communication
In the introduction and in the theory I mentioned that cultural differences would not be narrowed down
to ethnic or nation state difference because there could be a difference between divers and non-
divers, no matter what kind of ethnic background they have. In the field I have encountered both
differences as well as differences between the layers in the tourism industry of Bonaire. It turned out to
be that there were more cultural differences than intercultural communication. Since the of the lack of
communication between the different stakeholders. Therefore I have divided this section in three
45
subsections. Differences between tourists, within the tourism industry and ethnic cultural differences,
with which I will start.
Ethnic cultural differences
One of the first things that I noticed regarding ethnic differences was the fact that all the dive
instructors are from Europe or the United States of America. The majority is from The Netherlands and
most of the others are from the United States of America. Locals do not work directly in the tourism
sector as Willem Boom (owner The Divers of Bonaire) and Ronella Croes (manager TCB) mentioned.
Even the low rated jobs like cleaning are not locals anymore, they all come
from Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic (Willem Boom, manager The
Divers of Bonaire)
Restaurants and hotels go for cheap labor and choose for interns (Ronella
Croes, manager TCB)
Why the locals do not work directly in tourism was not clear. Nobody could tell me that. Ronella Croes
(manager TCB) said that the unemployment rate on Bonaire is almost 0%.
The majority of tourists is from the United States of America, Canada, The Netherlands and
Venezuela. Differences between the western tourists and the tourists from Venezuela are present.
Tourists and residents said that there is a difference in attitude of the Venezuelans versus other
tourists. They come with a cruise ship to Bonaire and stay for only one day. One of the problems,
according to the employees of The Divers of Bonaire, is the fact that in Venezuela a cruise holiday is
less expensive compared to a domestic holiday in Venezuela. Problems that arise with them are for
example the fact that they cannot swim. However they still want to go on a snorkel trip to Klein
Bonaire.
I do not go on a snorkel trip with them anymore, really I do not want that it is
horrible (dive instructor Manta Dive)
During my stay on Bonaire, the manager of The Divers of Bonaire dive school decided to cancel the
snorkel trips for people from Venezuela and this particular cruise ship. This was decided after some
incidents on the trips. People panicked in the water while snorkeling, stood extensively on the coral
and ask for help with swimming. This is undoable and dangerous for the guide of the trip and also very
bad for the coral.
Another problem that arises when this cruise ship is present in the harbor are thefts on the
beaches (dive instructors of The Divers of Bonaire). I was on the beach when somebody just found out
he was robbed when the cruise ship from Venezuela was at the island. However the tourists of
Venezuela are not the biggest factor in crime on Bonaire. Various people mentioned that the crime
rate has increased rapidly the last years (Duncan Green, owner Manta dive; Willem Boom, owner The
46
Divers of Bonaire; Bob, a Dutchman and Bonaire resident for 17 years; Jessica Velden, dive
instructor). There are burglaries in cars and hotel rooms, especially around the Christmas holidays.
The guys who do this are poor, but want to buy products for their sisters, brothers and other family
members (Jamie, assistant manager The Divers of Bonaire Hotel). The car rental agencies do not give
the possibility to insure the windows of the car. They advise you to open the windows when parked
and leave nothing in the car. Even for a bottle of water people would break into a car (Willem Boom,
owner The Divers of Bonaire). When I went to a rental agency to rent a scooter the guy who worked
there said
You cannot insure the scooter against theft, but I will give you a chain lock.
Duncan Green (owner Manta Dive) said that he knows the local community quite well and that
he has encountered a different attitude against the cruise tourists the last few years. They are
suddenly not so friendly anymore as they are towards dive tourists. Green thinks this change in
attitude is not strange because the city centre gets really crowded and roads are blocked for the
reason that the cruise tourist can get into a taxi. The TCB claims to search for the right tourists for
Bonaire, to attract the tourists that fit to Bonaire. The TCB likes to see everything in balance, the
businesses, locals and tourists (Ronella Croes, manager TCB). Croes said that the locals have their
own culture and way of life. The businesses and tourists need to respect that. A lot of businesses
charge a different price for locals than for tourists and foreigners. As already been mentioned, in order
to have a good balance the TCB tries to attract the right people to the island (Ronella Croes, manager
TCB).
Differences between tourists
Bonaire attracts other tourists than the rest of the Caribbean (Ronella Croes, manager TCB; Willem
Boom, owner The Divers of Bonaire; Eric van Wemelen, owner Wateradventures). Because Bonaire is
so much focused on diving it attracts people who come for a pure diving holiday. I have met tourists
from the United States of America who dove 4, or more times a day, for a whole week which is quite a
lot.
That group is out for its second night dive and 7th dive for today, that is
insane! (manager dive school The Divers of Bonaire)
Due to the lack of many beaches Bonaire is not really suitable for families and people who want to
have a holiday with beach opportunities. The nightlife of Bonaire is also not very extensive, there are
nice small cozy bars but large nightclubs and casinos are not present on Bonaire. Tourists that prefer
this will choose Curacao and Aruba over Bonaire. Besides diving Bonaire is becoming more and more
popular as a wind and kite surf destination (Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive). Ronella Croes
(manager TCB) said that Bonaire tries to attract people with other activities, because she often sees
that the man dives but the woman does not. With snorkeling, surfing and mountain biking Bonaire tries
47
to attract these people as well. However Bonaire will never pursue the goal of becoming a mass tourist
destination like for example Curacao and Aruba are.
The biggest differences between tourists are the differences between the cruise tourists
versus dive and surf tourists. Bonaire is a very peaceful quiet island and that is what the dive and surf
tourists like. But when a cruise ship enters the harbor the beaches and Kralendijk become very
crowded. And crowded is just not what the other tourists seek when they are on Bonaire. So there is
some irritation from the divers and to a lesser degree from the surfers against the cruise tourists
(Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive; Ronella Croes, manager TCB). Therefore the TCB is planning to
arrange activities for the cruise tourists for example a trip to Rincon, a city in the northern part of
Bonaire. In that way the TCB wants to spread the crowd over the island.
As I already mentioned, for divers it is a kind of second nature to be environmentally aware.
For the reason that their attraction is the environment. Croes (manager TCB) and Green (owner Manta
Dive) both mentioned that the wind and kite surfers are willing to help Bonaire in being a sustainable
destination. They initiated beach clean-up days and they respect the rules from the marine park. Since
I am a wave and kite surfer myself I am familiar with this culture. Most people that I know that practice
these sports are aware that nature is their attraction and it needs to be protected. A common
statement that is made in this culture is „Do not destroy what you came to enjoy‟. Something that
seems to be very normal but apparently not for everybody. Captain Don Stewart was once asked why
there are no signs near the shoreline that say „do not touch the coral‟. His answer was
Do you have to put a sign in the church that says do not piss on the altar?
In general the cruise tourist are less aware, informed and maybe interested in environmental
protection.
Tourism industry
I have encountered some differences in the different layers of the tourism industry regarding
sustainable tourism. Tourists that I spoke to did not see Bonaire as a sustainable destination, except
for the fact that they have to buy the Bonaire Marine National Park tag and that the waters are
protected in the form of a national park. However Ronella Croes (manger TCB) said that there are
some tourists who ask where the national park is, so apparently it is not clear to everyone that the
whole sea around Bonaire and Klein Bonaire is the national park. Some tourists that I spoke to even
stated that Bonaire is far away from sustainable development or tourism. This due to previously
mentioned problems in the sustainability part, as the proper sewerage system and the waste dump.
Another problem that is mentioned is the fact that the politics are too much involved. I will elaborate on
the politics in the next section.
The tourists do not have a very sustainable feeling about Bonaire while the tourism board tries
to promote sustainable tourism. That seems to be the problem on the island, the tourism board is
already promoting Bonaire as a sustainable destination. However Croes (manager TCB) told me in the
interview that Bonaire is going to focus on positioning Bonaire as a sustainable destination. Plans are
made with all parties involved to work up to a sustainable Bonaire in 2025 (Ronella Croes, manager
TCB; Willem Boom, owner The Divers of Bonaire and participant in the master plan for a sustainable
48
Bonaire). The tourism sector and particularly the dive resorts have the feeling that the TCB already
sees Bonaire as a sustainable destination but it does not help the resorts in being sustainable with for
example subsidy or funds for small windmills and solar panels (Willem Boom, owner The Divers of
Bonaire; Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive; Eric van Wemelen, owner Wateradventures; Captain Don
Stewart). Before I went to the TCB for the interview some people had said that Ronella Croes would
say that everything is going well and that there are no problems (Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive;
Captain Don Stewart, Jan, owner Ecoadventures; James, experienced diver and „Bonaire lover‟).
She will tell you everything is fine and that Bonaire‟s tourism numbers are
increasing (Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive).
But Croes (manager TCB) did mention some problems and told me that Bonaire is going to develop
itself in a sustainable way. She did not say that Bonaire is already a sustainable destination. Duncan
Green (owner Manta Dive) also said that the TCB wants to have more cruise ships in order to
generate more work for the locals. However Ronella Croes (manager TCB) said that there is a stop on
the cruise ships. She admits that the locals want more but that would not be good for Bonaire. The
dive industry is afraid that the TCB wants to develop Bonaire with more hotels, more houses, more
cruise ships and more tourists.
We do not want Bonaire to be another Aruba
is what Duncan Green (owner Manta Dive) and Ronella Croes (manager TCB) both said but in another
context. Duncan Green is afraid that the TCB and particularly Ronella Croes is trying to develop
Bonaire to another Aruba, mainly because Croes is from Aruba and has an Aruban mindset. Ronella
Croes sees the small and sustainable tourism industry for Bonaire as an advantage in this way being a
different destination from Aruba and Curacao. Bonaire has its knowledge and focus on diving and
environmental protection and has to use that (Ronella Croes, manager TCB). Because the existence
of these kind of differences, you can say that there is a lack of communication, between the different
parties within the Bonaire tourism industry, regarding the future of Bonaire.
There are also some clashes between STINAPA and the local community. Some locals do not
like STINAPA because those people are restricted in their work for example fishermen who get
restricted in the area that they are allowed to fish in. However STINAPA is just doing their job (Duncan
Green, owner Manta Dive; Ramon de Leon, manager Bonaire National Marine Park). Ronella Croes
(manager TCB) thinks clashes are normal in societies but when the local community will get more
knowledge and education regarding environmental protection they will respect and understand the
rules and laws of the Marine Park better. Plans and projects for this awareness are already made and
implemented (Ronella Croes, manger TCB; Eric van Wemelen, owner Wateradventures).
Ronella Croes (manager TCB) speaks of attracting the right tourists. The culture in the dive
industry is really informal and laid back, Croes states that not all dive tourists fit Bonaire. Why some
dive tourist should not fit Bonaire is not really clear to me. I experienced the diving culture in two
49
different areas, Bonaire and Indonesia. I believe both dive cultures were more or less the same and I
have heard narratives about the diving culture in Australia in which it seems to be the same. The
diving culture is as I already said really informal. I did not have to pay after every dive, they knew when
I planned to leave and I had to pay before I flew back to the Netherlands. This was the same in
Indonesia, there is a lot of trust from the dive resorts. Diving is all about having fun, joking, and fooling
around and the instructors try everything to be like that.
Yes six-pack!!!!
When you made a small mistake regarding the safety or just forgot something people were put on the
„Polar wall of fame‟. Polar is a Venezuelan beer brand that is very popular on Bonaire, people that
were put on the „wall‟ had to buy a six-pack for the instructor. I was put on the board once when I had
forgotten to bring my flippers to the shoreline. Some people complained by The Divers of Bonaire
because they thought there was too much focus on drinking and not on diving. I did not experience
this, I thought the instructors were really professional when teaching and during the dive briefings.
Since the fact that one mistake could be fatal they sometimes have to be serious, and they were
serious at the right moments.
Politics
Throughout the results I have mentioned the topic politics a few times. During the fieldwork it became
evident that politics play an interesting role on Bonaire. The biggest problem and irritation of tourists
and people in the dive sector is nepotism. The police force is not very large but the police officers that
are there do not do a good job according to some people (Jessica Velden, dive instructor; Bob, Dutch
and Bonaire resident for 17 years; various tourists). Burglars are not being arrested even though
sometimes the police know who the perpetrators are. An employee of the gym told me that some guys
from Bonaire broke into her car and followed her every day. She got scared and carried a screwdriver
with her everyday to protect herself because the police did not do a thing to protect her. Since the
society is small everybody knows each other, therefore it is hard for the police to arrest people they
know or might be relatives of somebody they know for small crimes. It seems that locals protect locals
here. Nepotism is not only present within the police, Duncan Green (owner Manta Dive) had a friend
who wanted to build a small windmill on his dive resort in order to generate his own green energy. A
planning permission was never granted by the government which is strange because Bonaire wants to
be sustainable. According to Green (owner Manta Dive) this is because a brother, uncle or friend of
the person who has to grant the permission, has a business in normal energy. When more dive resorts
change to green energy he would lose his job.
There is also corruption on Bonaire (Hans a part-time resident; Willem Boom, owner The
Divers of Bonaire). According to Willem Boom corruption can be present due to the many gaps in the
laws. He thinks the government is not capable of handling these kind of problems. Almost everybody
that I spoke with mentioned the fact that the government is not very good and lacks knowledge.
Duncan Green came with an example of a politician.
50
There is a politician who says that when the population grows to 40.000 our
taxes pays would be just perfect. I do not know anywhere in the world where
you increase your population to get more taxes and it works. It grows
simultaneously, more people will need more taxes. We need better roads,
schools and parking. When I got here there were 10 times less cars, but the
roads and parking are almost the same.
Because of the lack of knowledge people hope that The Netherlands will get more involved when
Bonaire gets the new status in The Netherlands. They believe there will be more knowledge and
money for Bonaire (Bob, Dutchman and Bonaire resident for 17 years; Eric van Wemelen, owner
Wateradventures, Captain Don Stewart; Duncan Green, owner Manta Dive; Willem Boom, owner The
Divers of Bonaire).
All these political problems do not support the development of Bonaire to become a
sustainable destination. Hans (part-time resident), Bob (Dutch and Bonaire resident for 17 years) and
the guide from Ecoadventures thinks that the sustainability Bonaire speaks of is all politics and a
marketing tool. Even Ramon de Leon (manager Bonaire National Marine Park) said that it is all
commercial.
These people see that Bonaire tries to be sustainable, but there are too many problems that
needs to be changed. Because of that they are skeptical on a sustainable Bonaire at this moment.
51
Analyses
In this part I will analyze the data with respect to the theory. After the analyses I can draw the
conclusion and answer the research question.
Bonaire confirms that, for islands in the Caribbean, tourism is the largest economical sector.
Apostolopoulos & Gayle (2002) state that for most of these islands tourism is the largest and mostly
the only export product. On Bonaire tourism is everywhere and as among others Ronella Croes
(manager TCB) said
Bonaire breaths diving.
It can be said that Bonaire is a tourism dependent island. McElroy & de Albuquerque (2002) state that
Caribbean islands are very much dependent on one export product which is tourism. For Bonaire it is
somewhat small because by far the largest tourist group consist of divers. If for some reason tourism
or diving cannot be an export product for Bonaire anymore, Bonaire will have a financial problem.
Bonaire is dependent on dive tourism but tries to differentiate her tourism offer. Cruise tourism and
water sports like windsurfing, kite boarding and snorkeling are also seen on Bonaire. Bonaire has
another export product which is salt. When driving to the south of the island the „snow white‟
mountains appear that are the result of the salt winning from the salt pans. The salt pans cannot
provide enough income, Bonaire therefore needs tourism but it is a nice alternative market to work in
for the local people. And also a nice site to make Christmas holiday pictures (dive master of The
Divers of Bonaire).
Cooper et al. (2005) state that tourism has a lot of impact on people. Positive impacts are for
example the income for a country. For Bonaire this is surely the case, without tourism Bonaire would
be a very poor island, the alternative salt pans do not provide enough income for Bonaire. One of the
negative impacts, which is the fact that nature suffers from tourism, is also present on Bonaire. When
the diving industry developed, Captain Don Stewart and his friends literally cut channels in the coral in
order to enter the sea for diving. Captain Don realized in time that this wonderful piece of nature had to
be protected, he is the initiator of the Bonaire National Marine Park. This park was revolutionary in the
world and other countries started to copy and follow Bonaire‟s national park (Duncan Green, owner
Manta Dive; Captain Don Stewart; Ronella Croes, manager TCB).
Apostolopoulos & Gayle (2002) state that sustainable tourism is required on the islands in the
Caribbean in order to maintain the long-term viability of tourism and the local destination. All
respondents on Bonaire share the opinion that sustainable development and/or nature conservation is
needed. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) defines sustainable tourism as;
“Sustainable tourism development meets the needs of present tourists and host
regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as
leading to management of all resources in such a way that economical, social, and
aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential
52
ecological processes, and biological diversity, and life support systems” (in Cooper et
al. 2005: 264)
With the marine park Bonaire does a good job to protect the ecology and biological diversity and has
set a first step to sustainable development. But Bonaire does not seem to be so sustainable as the
TCB promotes Bonaire. For sustainable tourism/development all stakeholders need to cooperate and
it is therefore a difficult concept (Cooper et al. 2005). The cooperation of all stakeholders seems to be
the problem on Bonaire. The TCB is already promoting Bonaire as a sustainable destination while the
dive resorts, locals and tourist are critical about this. Dive resorts really want to be sustainable in order
to protect the marine life but they do not get the support that is needed from the government.
Respondents warned me before I went to the TCB for an interview in which they would tell that
everything was fine concerning sustainable tourism and that they want to develop Bonaire more and
more. This was not the case, but is shows that heads are not up on the same side. It seems like other
ones behavior is interpreted and evaluated from one‟s own perspective. This often leads to positive
„us‟ and negative „them‟ (Baraldi 2006). I think that when this positive us and negative them is present
it is hard to change because both parties see the other one as negative and are not willing to change.
But in communication both parties need the cooperate and compromise. However it seems to be the
case that dive resorts and the TCB want the same thing for Bonaire which is sustainability. But they
have a different view of how to get there.
Locals and tourists raise questions by the sustainability of Bonaire. Except for the Bonaire
National Marine park they do not encounter any sustainable initiatives. Moreover they see the
dumpsite which is far from sustainable, you could even call it environmental pollution. Because nothing
is separated and toxic products as for example batteries are dumped there as well. Locals and tourists
also talk about the lack of a proper sewerage system. This is needed in order to have a sustainable
tourism destination, however a proper sewerage system is too expensive for Bonaire. Bonaire is, as
many islands in the Caribbean, depended on former colonial forces in among others financial terms
(Oostindie 2005). Help from The Netherlands is needed here. Captain Don Stewart, Willem Boom
(owner The Divers of Bonaire) and Duncan Green (owner Manta Dive) hope for that The Netherlands
are going to help Bonaire with these kind of problems after the political reformation in October 2010.
Politics form another problem, they seem to use every hole in the law system to build and
develop Bonaire, not considering any impacts on nature. This kind of development is good for
construction workers and other business. However Cooper et al. (2005) state that for sustainable
tourism all stakeholders need to cooperate to make it a success. Since Bonaire has a small
community, politicians and other policy makers have family and/or friends who profit from these kind of
developments. Nepotism is a common seen problem on small islands like Bonaire (Cooper et al. 2005;
Oostindie 2005). This seems to be rooted in the culture on a lot of islands in the Caribbean and
therefore maybe hard to change. But it is surely something to take into account in order to create a
sustainable destination.
Sustainable tourism is not only focused on terms of nature but also on culture (Cooper et al.
2005). The local community should not suffer from tourism but has to profit from it. However their
social life should not be changed dramatically (Apostolopoulos & Gayle 2002). According to McElroy &
53
de Albuquerque (2002) a problem in tourism on these small islands can be the huge differences in
wages. On Bonaire there are not a lot of locals participating in tourism. Except of a few taxi drivers
most of the locals have jobs in other areas. Whether the salaries actually are lower did not became
clear out of the research, but crime is rising and becoming a problem on Bonaire. Cars should be
parked with windows open to show the burglars that there is nothing left in the car, they even would
break into the car for a bottle of water (Jessica van Velden, dive instructor). Also hotels suffer from
burglars. Jessica van Velden (dive instructor) and Jamie (assistant manager The Divers of Bonaire)
said that crime is always rising weeks before Christmas. The boys who steal products and money
want to have Christmas presents for their family. Ronella Croes (manager TCB) said that there are
programs on Bonaire to educate and inform the local community about the importance of tourism and
environmental protection. Furthermore Croes stated that Bonaire is trying to attract the right tourists
that fit Bonaire. This in order to keep a balance between the tourists and the locals.
Bonaire is not protecting and enhancing an opportunity for the future as the concept of
sustainable tourism requires. The Bonaire National Marine Park is a good initiative and does fit in a
sustainable vision. But the above mentioned problems show that other parts of a sustainable tourism
development are not reached yet. However there are enough plans on Bonaire to develop the island in
a sustainable way, some projects as attracting the right tourists and educating the locals have just
started. Various advisory committees that work on the future of Bonaire are developing plans on how
to reach sustainable tourism development (Willem Boom owner The Divers of Bonaire). Because
Bonaire is just starting and planning to implement sustainable tourism it is hard to test Bonaire‟s
sustainable tourism in relation to the described theory. Bonaire, in the form of the TCB, creates the
image, with for example stating that since they have won a sustainable tourism award, they are a
sustainable destination. While in fact they are just starting to develop Bonaire as a sustainable
destination. The basis for a sustainable destination was already created years ago with the Bonaire
National Marine Park and Washington Slagbaai National Park. The different attitude of the TCB
compared with the other layers in tourism on Bonaire can be seen as cultural differences which brings
me to intercultural communication.
If we look at intercultural communication in terms of ethnic cultural differences we can state
that this is caused by globalization. Through globalization cultures have met, intertwined and clashed
with each other. Bonaire is an island where various cultures have met and intertwined, this is the result
of all the years of colonialization. Later people from all over the world, but mainly The United States of
America and The Netherlands moved to Bonaire. When these people started to move to Bonaire,
there was already a new culture present which is the Antillean culture, a mix of African, Latin and
European influences. Baraldi (2006) states that globalization has a more or less positive and negative
impact on culture. On one side, globalization stimulates cultural change and new opportunities in
communication, but on the other side globalization also threatens cultural traditions. For the economy
of Bonaire it has been good that people from the western society started to establish themselves on
the island. Given that they created Bonaire as a tourism destination. However, as I found out in the
fieldwork, on Bonaire the locals do barely participate in tourism. The people that work in the diving
industry on Bonaire are mainly people from The United States of America and The Netherlands.
54
Between them I have encountered no differences. I believe this group has created a new sort of
culture, a western culture with influences of the local community. The phenomenon of the mixing local
and global culture is called glocalization (Baraldi 2006). It was obvious that the Dutch people that live
and work on Bonaire are not so in „such a hurry‟ and live by the clock as in The Netherlands is often
the case. Being half an hour late for an appointment was never a problem. The fact that locals barely
participate in tourism results in less intercultural communication in terms of ethnic intercultural
communication. In the diving industry the tourists that visit Bonaire are mostly experienced divers,
therefore they fit the diving culture on Bonaire very well. Here you can also speak, in general, of little
intercultural communication. Non experienced divers will encounter a different culture, which is the
diving culture. However on Bonaire there are very few non experienced divers.
Between the different stakeholders in the tourism industry of Bonaire there are some
differences. Most obvious is the fact that different owners, managers and employees of dive resorts
think that Bonaire, in the form of the TCB, want to develop Bonaire more and more. They want more
cruise ships visiting Bonaire, more hotels and more tourists while not considering any environmental
impact or sustainable development. But in the interview with the TCB I found out that this is not the
case. The fact that they would tell me that Bonaire is doing a good job in terms of sustainable tourism,
I was warned for in advanced. Where the truth lies is not that important, but the fact is that these two
important stakeholders have different thoughts about each other and maybe a different view on how
the future of Bonaire should look like. There is no good communication, in fact I think there is no
communication at all in terms of development. This can be confusing for tourists, because through
information of the TCB they get a sustainable image of Bonaire like I did, but on the other hand they
do barely encounter this when being on the island. The only thing tourists will encounter are the rules
of the Bonaire National Marine Park. STINAPA including the Bonaire National Marine Park is doing a
good job, that is what almost everybody thinks. That is, except a part of the local community, because
they feel they get restricted in doing their job. Because of the lack of knowledge and education locals
do not always understand why certain rules are present on Bonaire. With different campaigns
STINAPA and the TCB are trying to change this.
55
How does the tourism industry involving Bonaire communicate sustainable tourism
and what role do cultural differences play in the communication between the different
stakeholders?
Conclusion
The aim of the research was to find out how the people of Bonaire work out and communicate
sustainable tourism. How this affects the community and how the different actors interact with each
other. The research question that I will give answer on in this section is;
As Apostolopoulos & Gayle (2002) stated, sustainable tourism is required on the islands in the
Caribbean in order to maintain the long-term viability of tourism and the local destination. This is also
the case for Bonaire, however for Bonaire it is even more important than for the other islands in the
Caribbean. Not only because of sustaining nature but also because Bonaire is almost fully dependent
on dive tourism, the ecosystem needs to be protected. After all, the loss of pristine ecosystem means
less divers which will result in a huge drop in tourism and its revenue. Islands like Curacao and Aruba
are less dependent on its ecosystem and pristine marine life, because tourists visit these islands more
for the sun, sea and beach concept and less for its nature.
In sustainable terms Bonaire is doing a good job with the Bonaire National Marine Park. The
park was founded many years ago and provides a good basis for sustainable tourism. I came to the
conclusion that Bonaire is not a sustainable tourism destination, although the tourism cooperation
does suggest this. The TCB suggest this in its marketing campaign and by showing off the Sustainable
Tourism Award of 2008. This is all based on the marine park, which in itself is not enough to be a
sustainable destination. Only a part of the nature is protected and it does not focus on for example
protecting cultural integrity. Sustainable tourism demands that economical, social and aesthetic needs
can be fulfilled and sustained for the future (Cooper et al. 2005). So one cannot speak of sustainable
tourism on Bonaire. In my opinion Bonaire has a good basis with the Bonaire National Marine Park for
sustainable development, however things need to be changed in order to call Bonaire a sustainable
tourism destination.
The TCB communicates Bonaire as a sustainable destination, but I found out that sustainable
ways of operating have just started or are planned to be implemented soon. Tourists get information of
Bonaire as being a sustainable destination before they arrive, however once on the island they barely
encounter sustainability. Except for the Bonaire National Marine Park and the windmill park, that have
been just finished, tourist do not see Bonaire as a sustainable destination. Even the marine park
management does not see Bonaire as a sustainable destination.
Tourists, locals and dive resorts are not involved in sustainable tourism yet. Only in following
the rules of the marine park. Besides the Bonaire National Marine Park and the windmill park there are
no initiatives from the government or the TCB in creating Bonaire as a sustainable destination. Right
now, calling Bonaire sustainable seems to be a marketing tool. That is what Ramon de Leon (manager
56
Bonaire National Marine Park) also said, it is commercial. People of Bonaire and tourists repeatedly
stated the problems of the dump site and lack of a proper sewerage system on Bonaire, huge
problems in terms of creating a sustainable destination. I think Bonaire cannot speak of sustainability
with these kinds of problems present on the island.
Sustainable tourism is in its infancy on Bonaire. Besides the Bonaire Natural Marine Park,
Bonaire is developing a windmill park which will provide half of the needed energy. Within five years
Bonaire wants to produce 100% sustainable energy. Steering committees are developing plans for a
sustainable Bonaire. Implementing these plans will result in more sustainability. Implementing the
plans will need communication between all stakeholders. Right now there is a lack of communication
and there are some frustrations present that need to be solved in order to develop Bonaire in a
sustainable way. Frustrations are for example the fact that the majority of people that work in the
diving industry gets irritated by the cruise tourists. The dive industry is also frustrated by the fact that
the TCB promotes itself as a sustainable destination while the dive industry believes this is not true.
The diving industry really likes to implement more sustainable ways of operating, but they do not
receive enough support to do this from the government. The government needs to change the laws
regarding sustainable tourism and for example provide subsidies for small windmills and solar panels.
Since Bonaire has not al lot of financial resources, The Netherlands should help here.
Speaking of communicating sustainable tourism, there barely is communication between the
different stakeholders. Because the dive resorts and locals see the TCB as an organization that only
wants to promote Bonaire in order to get more tourists and more money, they barely communicate
with the TCB. However the TCB denies that they only want more tourists and more money. Ronella
Croes (manager TCB) told me about the plans for the future of Bonaire. This misunderstanding
between the dive industry and the TCB should change in order to implement sustainable tourism,
because all stakeholders need to cooperate to successfully reach sustainable tourism. Luckily for
Bonaire divers, who are one of the stakeholders in tourism, have an environmentally aware mindset.
These tourists take the environment they are in into account. Divers are dependent on the pristine
marine life that is present on Bonaire, in order to keep enjoying it. Cruise tourists are seen as tourists
that do not take the environment into account. I think that at least for a part they cannot be blamed,
because of the lack of provided information to them. Because of the difference in knowledge and
awareness by the cruise tourists and dive tourist of the environment there is a clash on the island
between them. The TCB is planning activities to solve this.
In order to answer the part of the research question on what role cultural differences have on
the communication, there is communication needed. However there was not enough communication
present. On the other hand I have encountered some cultural differences. I already mentioned the
differences between the dive tourists and cruise tourists. The local community is not really participating
in tourism. The differences in wages of the tourism industry with other industries are high. In the
tourism industry mainly people from The Netherlands and The United States of America are employed.
The differences in wages result in crime. Small crime is becoming a problem on Bonaire. Car rental
agencies do not provide insurance for windows because breaking in cars happens too often.
Therefore everybody needs to leave the windows open and nothing in the car when parked. Burglaries
57
in hotel rooms are also present on Bonaire. According to some people working in a dive resort, young
guys break into the hotel rooms in order to get presents for their family. The local community that I
speak of here, are Antilleans. The other residents on Bonaire are mainly from The Netherlands and
The United States of America. They work in the diving industry and have created a new sort of culture,
their western culture with influences from the local community. The local community has also a lack of
knowledge and information on the importance of protecting nature. The TCB and STINAPA are trying
to change this with different campaigns for the local community. In order to create a sustainable
tourism destination Bonaire needs to implement more sustainable ways of operating and create better
communication between all stakeholders.
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Reflection
As I described in the methods part, the researcher is one of the most important research tools. This is
because I gained the data, interpreted it and had influence on my respondents. In that sense the data
are subjective, but being aware of my identity and reflect to it, the bias of the research is minimized.
Me as a researcher
Because I went to Bonaire all alone I was dependent on who I met during the research and what
impact that would have for the months in the field. Because I had already some knowledge and
interest in diving I easily fitted in the group of people that I became part of. This group of people were
living and working in the diving industry and therefore very helpful and interesting for the research.
Most of the time they did not understand what I was precisely doing on Bonaire except for the few
official interviews I did. They saw me more as a tourist or a regular intern, which I intended to be
because in that way I could observe and experience the subject the best. I fitted quite well in the dive
community, which is a very relaxed and laid back community. I could compare this diving culture with
the surfing culture that I am part of myself. This relaxed vibe could also be dangerous for the research,
so I had to remind myself that I was researching and not just relaxing on a tropical island. Because I
had some experience in diving I understood the industry quite well, however a lot of things were new
for me and I could therefore interpret them without prior knowledge and assumptions.
Since Bonaire is a part of the Dutch Kingdom there are a lot of Dutch on the island. Dutch who
are tourists, residents or temporary residents. Therefore I was a commonly seen person on the island.
After 2,5 weeks I did not feel like a tourist anymore. I could find my way very fast because of the
smallness of the island and the fact that a lot of people speak or understand Dutch. The majority that
does not speak Dutch, speaks English which is no problem for me either. The fact that I cannot speak
Spanish is a limitation of the research. I could not speak to cruise tourists, who were mainly from
South America. Although it would have been interesting to speak with some of them they were not a
really important research group for this research.
I do not think that, me as a researcher had a lot of influence on the interviewees. They were all
eager to help me in the research since it was on the sustainability of Bonaire. The appointments were
all easily made and the interviews were pleasant and fruitful.
The fieldwork
After a few days in the field I met two Dutch interns who worked for a dive resort near my temporary
home. They were working in the hotel of the dive resort, The Divers of Bonaire. Since I socialized a lot
with them and also around the hotel bar, which is typical Caribbean bar made of old wood, lots of
colors and is outside, I had the chance to meet a lot of tourists. At a barbeque and rum punch night I
met some dive instructors, with whom I went diving later on. The time I spent with them was not only
fun but also fruitful for the research. For the reason that I „lived‟ in the middle of the research domain, I
spent a lot of time around the dive school and the resort where I met many tourists. I was also able to
meet people who live on Bonaire and work in the dive business. Through this way I could conduct a lot
59
of informal conversations and collect data while I was diving or just hanging out there. Soon I realized
that the research question I had formulated was not workable in the field. At first I wanted to focus on
the dive resorts only. But I found out that I would not be able to collect enough data to write a proper
thesis. Therefore I changed the research question to what it is now.
Since Bonaire is very small and therefore the community in the dive industry is small too, I met
people who I planned to interview before I even had the chance to make an appointment. In that way I
already had an informal conversation with them instead of the planned interview. Therefore I have
conducted less recorded interviews than I planned to do. I think informal conversations are a better
way of collecting data in the diving culture than a more formally recorded interview. This because there
is a really laid back vibe in this community. Therefore I believe a more relaxed setting for a
conversation works better in this culture, so that is what I did.
In order to answer the research question in terms of sustainable tourism and intercultural
communication as it is formulated, this research should be repeated in about five years. Since Bonaire
is planning more sustainable ways of operating, by then Bonaire will be a more sustainable destination
than it is right now. Hopefully all stakeholders will communicate more with each other to make it a
success.
60
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Documentaries
Katzev, P & Katzev, L (2004) Bonaire Island Adrift, Captain Don, Kralendijk: Scuba Vision Films
Mouissie, W (2010), Tropisch Koninkrijk, Rotterdam: Llink
Ortega, K (2009) Michael Jackson‟s movie This is It, Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures
Tourism Corporation Bonaire (2010) Duiken, Kralendijk: Tourism Corporation Bonaire
Other
Raaf de, P (2009) Guest lecture on the bankrupt of Fokker Aircraft, Amsterdam: VU University