A human resources approach of Haiti’s performance as a tourist destination

Tourisme & Territoires / Tourism & Territories
Volume 3 (2013)

A HUMAN RESOURCES APPROACH OF H AITI ’ S
PERFORMANCE AS A TOURIST DESTINATION
Hugues Séraphin1

Abstract
Haiti has been a tourist destination out of bounds for a long period.
The country is now experiencing a new era in its tourism
management (Séraphin, 2012a). In this paper we have decided to
analyse the performance of the ex ‘Pearl of the Caribbean’ from a
human resources point of view as we are aiming to offer a
counterpoint to the rhetoric view of destination performances as
being mainly an economic element. The paper also seeks to
answer two key questions:
(1)
To what extent has slavery impacted on the tourism sector
in Haiti?
(2)
What are the challenges from a human resources
management approach?
To answer the above questions we have opted for a qualitative
analysis with an inductive and exploratory approach. The
objective is to find out an indicator that can be used to evaluate the
human resources in the tourism sector in Haiti. The findings
indicate customer service as a valid indicator. Haiti has a very low
profile when it comes to customer service. The lack of dedication
of the people working in the industry, the lack of trust and the
situation (political, economic and social) of the country are
playing a major role in this poor performance. A soft human
resources management approach has been identified as the most
suitable way to deal with the situation.

Key words: Haiti, Slave trade, Customer service, Performance,
Human Resources Management

1

Ph.D PGCE MA. The University of Winchester (Faculty BLS), England.
CREDDI-LEAD EA 2438 Guyane (Université des Antilles Guyane, France).

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INTRODUCTION

Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world used to be the first
tourist destination in the Caribbean between 1940e -1960e
(Séraphin, 2010). Since the appointment of Stephanie BalmirVilledrouin as the tourist minister, the destination is going through
a new era (Séraphin, 2012a). However, lots still needs to be done
to improve the quality of the product ‘Haiti’ particularly in the
hospitality sector (Séraphin, 2012b) particularly when it comes to
Customer Relation Management (Séraphin, 2013b). Performance
measurement is therefore essential as the basis for continuous
improvement and for designing an adequate system not only to
support the destination but also to be able to take the right decision
for this destination (Onyango et al., 2012) as the success is
determined among other things by competitive advantages. Those
competitive advantages are established as a result of effective
resources deployment (Botti et al., 2011). Subsequently,
performance measurement becomes key. As people are the most
important source of sustained competitive advantage (Adeleye,
2011) a human resources approach to analyse Haiti’s performance
as a tourist destination makes total sense. Moreover, over time, the
importance of non-financial measures emerged as another
approach to performance measurement with a greater involvement
of staff for continuous improvement (Onyango, 2012).
Despite the fact that Haiti has been hailed by many people
including the Secretary of the WTO as a destination with a huge
potential (Séraphin, 2013a), ‘the Taiwan of the Caribbean’
(Thomson, 2004) has also been pointed out as a destination with
too many ‘amateurs’ working in the tourism industry (Theodat,
2004). This paper is particularly interesting because it provides a
clear view and thorough analysis of a destination that used to be a
leading destination (Séraphin, 2010) in the 1940s without a
particularly trained workforce and another view of the same
destination some 70 years later, struggling to get back on the
world tourism map. Over the years training has become central, as
without well-trained staff it is difficult to be able to compete
against other destinations. In the future, the most successful
nations will be those which develop high quality, skilled and
motivated workforces and those which make the most of the
talents of all their people (NACETT, 1994). As Human Resources
Management is broadly concerned with people management such
as personnel management and organisational behaviour (Nickson,
2013), what is of particular interest in this paper is the exploration
of the long term consequences of the slave trade on the tourism

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and hospitality sectors in Haiti (Séraphin & Butler, 2013) and the
challenge from human resources Management.
A very limited number of academic papers have been written
about the tourism industry in Haiti as if there is nothing to tell
about this country from a tourism angle. Dore (2010) is for
instance the only one to have written a thesis about the tourism
sector in Haiti with a clear focus on tourism as a field of study. In
this paper we are going to essentially rely on Dore’s thesis:
Politique de formation professionnelle et d’emploi en Haïti. Le cas
du secteur du tourisme (1980-2010) in order to have a good
understanding of the courses/training in offer in Haiti as well as a
demography and situation of the people working in the sector. We
are also going to use Séraphin’s papers to get information about
the tourism sector in Haiti. His research is about entrepreneurship
in the tourism sector in Haiti (Séraphin, 2012a, 2013a); tourism
literature on Haiti (Séraphin, 2012b); guided tours (Séraphin,
2013b) and the impacts of the slave trade on the tourism industry
and hospitality sector in Haiti (Séraphin & Butler 2013). Books
and academic papers on Human Resources Management and
academic papers on tourism destination and destination
performance will also be used. The literature used in this paper
clearly highlight our objective to counterpoint the rhetoric views
of destination performances as being mainly an economic element.
The human side is also very important particularly in the
Caribbean where all the islands have been through slavery and are
relying on the tourism industry as the way ahead for their
economy. This study is therefore going to address two key
questions:
(1)
To what extent has slavery impacted on the tourism sector
in Haiti?
(2)
What are the challenges from a human resources
management approach?
To answer the above questions we have opted for a qualitative
analysis with an inductive and exploratory approach.
In order to understand how human resources can be used as a tool
to assess the performance of a tourist destination, our paper
unfolds in three steps: (1) The profile of the studied destination (2)
An analysis of the key concepts (3) Establish the importance of
human resources in the tourism sector in a postcolonial
destination.

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THE PROFILE OF THE STUDIED DESTINATION
H I ST O R Y
Haiti is between the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. It
occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola,
in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the
Dominican Republic. It is almost impossible to refer to the period
of the slave trade in Haiti without referring to Toussaint
L’Ouverture, also called the ‘Bonaparte of the Antilles’ who set
free all Haitian slaves. Despite the fact that he recognised the
sovereign rights of France, in 1801 Toussaint L’ Ouverture was
seized by the French in Cap-Français and put on board a ship and
ferried as prisoner to France in 1802. In 1803 he was found dead.
In 1804, Dessaline declared the independence of Haiti. Haiti
became the first black republic. Dessaline then ordered the
massacre of most of the whites who had remained on the island
(Hector & Hurbon, 2009 cited in Gilles 2012). However, despite
the abolition of slavery, the spirit of slavery remains in the form of
a systematic pillaging of the public funds by those in office which
has kept the people in poverty (Thomson, 2004). Haiti was once
the richest French colony. It was even called the ‘Pearl of the
Antilles’, but today it is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Indicators witness a very poor level of human development: Life
expectancy (62 years), infant mortality (80%), maternal mortality
(523 per 100000 live births), and adult illiteracy (50%),
unemployment among the active population (around 60%), etc.
The vulnerability of the Haitian population is very high with 65%
of the population living below the poverty threshold (Roc, 2008).
Between 1800 and 2009, the service sector moved from less than
5% to 60% of the GDP of Haiti. The move from the primary
sector as being the main sector of the economy of the country to
the service sector is mainly due to a change of activity of a huge
part of the population (Bénédique et al, 2010).

T O U R I S M I N H AI T I
Tourism is often described as one of the world’s largest industries
(Cooper and Hall, 2008, p. 252). When it comes to the Caribbean
most people think about sunny, white beach paradise islands,
colourful cocktails and lively music. Because the region is very
diverse, not all the islands are ‘vested in the branding and
marketing of paradise’ (Sheller, 2004, p. 23). For instance, Haiti
and the Dominican Republic have two different images. On the
one hand we have one of the most visited island of the Caribbean
(The Dominican Republic), on the other hand, Haiti, branded as an
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insecure destination (Higate and Henry, 2009), is perceived as a
place where the worst is always likely to happen (Bonnet, 2010).
Haiti was the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean
between 1940e – 1960e (Séraphin, 2010) and as such attracted an
international jet set. Mick Jagger, Charles Addams, Jackie
Kennedy, etc. were among those who popularised Haiti (Thomson,
2004). In fact, in 1951, the island received 10,788 visitors and in
1956, 67,700 tourists visited the island. The number of tourists had
multiplied by 6 in 5 years (Jules and Laplanche, 2006). In 1957,
the dictatorship and the atmosphere of terror organised by
Francois Duvalier and his Tontons Macoutes, crippled the tourism
industry of the country. When Jean-Claude Duvalier became
president in 1972, the situation of the island improved slightly. In
the late 1970s and 1980s things changed drastically for Haiti.
During this decade the destination went through a severe
economic crisis which developed into a socio-political crisis.
Between 1987 and 2004, the number of tourists went from
239.200 in 1987 to 108.868 in 2004, which represents a decrease
of more than 54% of the number of visitors in 17 years.
Nowadays, Haiti is one of the least visited islands for three main
reasons: The political instability; the climate of insecurity and last
but not least, the lack of facilities for tourists (Séraphin, 2011).

KEY CONCEPTS ANALYSIS
S LA V E R Y AN D I T S L E GA CY
The Portuguese sea captain Antam Gonçalvez became the first
white man to enslave Africans on the West coast of Africa and
take them away by sea in 1441 (Reader, 1998). For the following
400 years this atrocious trade in humans was considered to be a
legitimate form of commerce by Europeans, Arabs and Africans
themselves. Approximately 18 million slaves were exported from
tropical Africa between 1500 and the late 1800s (Idem). The
devastation, trauma, dehumanisation and domination wrought by
slavery and the slave trade have been severely underestimated
(Ogude, 1981; Kusimba, 2004 and Reader, 1998). Africa was
ruled by fear, insecurity and terror, minimising legitimate
exchange and confining people to ethnic boundaries with profound
social, political, cultural, economic and psychological impacts on
African societies and peoples (Kusimba, 2004; Obadina, 2008). In
order to survive it was inevitable that a culture of mistrust evolved
(Nunn & Wantchekon, 2011). Ogude (1981) contends that the
common shared racial memory of slavery has defined and

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continues to shape black people today; slavery is the fate of an
entire race, unfinished business.

T O U R I S M I N D EV EL O P I N G CO U N T R I E S
There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether tourism is
a godsend or an evil. Wagner cited in Crick (1989) points out that
an industry as complex as tourism, which involves individual,
local, national and international levels in addition to economic,
social and cultural factors cannot be consistently ‘good’ or ‘bad’
for a third world country. The impact of tourism on the
contemporary world is profound. Apart from war and insecurity, it
accounts for the largest movement of human populations. It was
the single largest item in world trade until the oil price hikes in the
early 1970s having grown by 10% per annum since the 60s. Many
third world countries have chosen the tourism industry as a central
development strategy, strongly encouraged in the 60s by such
organisations as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), World Bank and United Nations. The
leisure seeking tourists from wealthy countries would lead to
economic advancement in the poor host countries.
Retrospectively, binding the growth of a third world country to the
affluence of Europe and North America when it is the very forces
behind that affluence that maintains the under development status
quo of the third world seems far too simplistic (Crick, 1989).
Investments in infrastructure such as buildings and transport are
used solely by tourists to the exclusion of the locals. Furthermore,
tax free profits and financial incentives offered to businesses by
third world governments to attract Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) open the doors to corruption and fraud. Moreover, the
majority of jobs created for the locals are unskilled and low paid
whilst the effect of tourism raises land and food prices, exposes
the locals to the conspicuous consumption of the tourist and
recreates the structure of the colonial situation (Idem) which this
paper contends has its origins in the slave trade. Since the 1980s
there is a growing recognition that tourism requires more equality
among all participants which has led to alternative forms of
tourism where less foreign capital, more local people, food and
architecture are engaged (ibidem).

S O CI AL R EP R E S EN T AT I O N
Social representations are built on a shared knowledge and
understanding of a common reality (Moscovici, 1961). The key
point is that social representations constitute collective systems of
meaning which may be expressed, or whose effects may be
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observed in values, ideas and practices (Duveen &Lloyd, 1993).
They are embodied in habitual behaviour, in formal and informal
communication. In other words, social representations are
products of interconnectedness between people and processes of
references through which we conceive the world (Deaux &
Philogene, 2001). Tourism development appears to be an
interesting topic for the attention of a social representation
framework (Meliou & Maroudas, 2010). Subsequently, social
representation can be used to understand how different groups
think about tourism (Pearce et al. 1991). Haiti is a former French
colony (Thomson, 2004) inhabited by former slaves from subSaharan Africa who had been exploited (Pulvar, 2006). It
therefore shares with Africa a common European colonisation
legacy. Social representations can be part of what Haiti (and even
the Caribbean) and Africa have in common.
Tourism in third world countries is strongly associated with
servility, which this paper contends harks back to hegemonic
legacies left by slavery, breeding resentment. Unofficially the
extent of this servility also embraces prostitution and exploitation
on all sides. Whilst the focus of this paper is on the effects of the
slave trade on the performance of Haiti as a tourist destination the
tourist needs to be mentioned beyond their ideas of stereotypes.
When on holiday in a world of play and freedom rather than work
and structure, the tourist can unshackle himself from his normal
life. He can be indulgent rather than responsible, promiscuous
rather than chaste, spend rather than save (Crick, 1989). Whilst
perpetuating and reinforcing stereotypes, tourism creates a
damaging image of the third world that could be detrimental for
development (Idem). Nunn & Wantchekon (2011) have indicated
that individuals whose ancestors were heavily raided during the
slave trade are less trusting today. They have also pointed out that
most of the impact of the slave trade is through factors that are
internal to the individual, such as cultural norms, beliefs and
values. Thus, Ian Thomson, in ‘Bonjour blanc, a journey through
Haiti’ (2004) explains that tourists in Haiti are not just tourists,
they are white people: ‘Blanc’. They are constantly referred to by
their skin colour. In the tourism and hospitality sector this can be
an issue particularly when it comes to customer service. Jacques
Maillot, ex CEO of Nouvelles Frontieres (a French T.O) explained
that in the French Caribbean, locals perceived tourism as a reenactment of slavery, hence the poor customer service and the
complaints from customers (Perri, 2004). This paper makes a
unique contribution of the representation of tourism for countries
that have been through the slave trade. In a way this paper also
contributes to the meta-literature related to black culture and
identity with an application to the tourism sector.
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T H E ‘ B L AN C ’ I N H AI T I
Séraphin (2012b) established that ‘Bonjour blanc, a journey
through Haiti’ is a good travel writing book as it weaves a lot of
information, raises the reader’s emotions and energy and gets
people on their feet. It gives a vivid insight into a narrative of a
way of life which is relatively in balance punctuated by terrible
disaster, where balance is sometimes restored. It is full of
opposing forces - Thomson often expresses many contradicting or
even mixed feelings about and for Haiti and the Haitians. It deals
with fundamental conflicts between subjective expectation and
cruel reality, and displays the struggle between expectation and
reality in all its nastiness; it looks behind the mask. This journey
through Haiti also appeared as a quest for the ‘Grail’. The ‘Grail’
for Thomson is the quest of the true nature of Haiti. To find the
object of his quest he went all over the country talking to different
people. At the end Thomson achieved his objective. ‘Bonjour
blanc, a journey through Haiti’ is a remarkable achievement
giving wonderful vignettes from Haitian culture and history
beyond CNN’s reach. Ian Thomson spent most of his time
interacting with locals who were either Haitian born (Enoch, the
guide; Richard Morse, owner of the Hotel Oloffson; etc.) or
foreigners who have been living in Haiti for a long time (Aida
from Italy and owner of the cafe Napolitan; Eleanor Snear,
American born and head of the Haitian-American Institute; etc.).
So, his universe can be described as cosmopolitan.
Thomson got the most out of the locals. They are depicted in
‘Bonjour blanc’ as the ones conveying all the information Ian
Thomson needed to write his travel writing. Séraphin (2013) even
compared the locals to tour guides. But what did the locals get
from Thomson? How did they perceive Ian Thomson? Based on
the fact that there is not a balance between the number of visitors
(coming to Haiti) and the number of locals (Haitians) going to the
country of the visitors, the relationship is a de facto relationship
where locals and visitors are not on the same level with one
dominating the other (Michel, 2000). Thus, Ian Thomson was
always referred as being the ‘blanc’ (white man). In other words,
Ian Thomson’s presence in Haiti can be considered as being an
allegory of the slave trade period with Thomson being the ‘wealth
sucker’ and the locals ‘the providers’. Ian Thomson was also
perceived as the ‘cash cow’, a source of potential income for the
locals. Many times he was asked for money by the locals: ‘Blanc,
blanc, Ba moin un gourde blanc’ (Thomson, 2004, p. 141);
‘Blanc, blanc, dollar ! dollar ! for egg ! (Thomson, 2004, p. 143) ;
‘eh blanc, gimme a dollar’ (Thomson, 2004). At no point in the
travel writing was a relationship of friendship described despite
the fact that Thomson almost spent a year in Haiti. But as
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Thomson clearly highlighted, ‘A Blanc can never really get to
know the Haitians. Not deep down, anyway’ (Thomson, 2004, p.
221). Korstanje (2012) also argued that the degree of hospitality
or hostility is often circumscribed to two major factors one of
them being a previous history of disputes between hosts and
guests.

H U MAN R ESO U R C E S I N T H E T O U R I S M S E CT O R I N H AI T I
According to De Silva (1997), without the right kind of human
capital a country will fail to deliver growth. The same can be said
about any firm where human resources are the core competences
and the most important source of sustained competitive advantage
(Adeleye, 2011). For Nickson (2013), Human Resources
Management is the means by which an organisation can gain
competitive advantage. All the information previously mentioned
can also be applied to a tourist destination as besides comparative
advantages and price, many other variables determine the
competitiveness of their dominion (Botti et al, 2013). In this paper,
we have decided to consider human resources. Performance
measurement is essential as it offers an effective method of
determining whether or not an organisation (in our case, a
destination) is meeting its goals and its mission. Performance
measurement is also essential for improvement (Onyango et al.,
2012). Using some data from Dulce’s thesis (2010), we have
generated the following tables in order to provide a very specific
feature of the workforce or human resources working in the
tourism industry in Haiti.
GENDER

TABLE 1
IN TH E T O U R IS M S E C T O R I N

H A IT I

With a qualification in tourism
Male
61.5%
Female
38.5%

A GE

T AB LE 2
O F S T AF F IN TH E T O U R IS M S E C TO R IN

Staff 20-24
Staff 25-29
Staff 30-34
Staff 35-39

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H A I TI

9.2%
17.7%
30.8%
42.3%

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T R AI N IN G

TABLE 3
AND COURSES IN TOURISM IN

University
Level V
Level IV
Level III

HAITI

Bsc in hospitality, catering and tourism
70%
20%
10%
TABLE 4

Q U A LIF IC A TI O N

O F S T A F F IN TH E TO U R I S M S E C TO R

CAP
BEP
BTS
Bsc
BT

44.6%
27%
12.3%
11.5%
4.6%
TABLE 5

S E C TO R

O F TH E T O U R IS M S E C T O R W H E R E Q U A LI F IE D S TA F F
AR E W O R K IN G

Catering
Leisure
Hospitality
Transport
Travel

35.4%
28%
15.3%
13.7%
7.7%
TABLE 6

WHAT

T H E S T AF F TH IN K AB O U T TH E TO U R I S M S E C TO R

Not quite sure they want to stay
in the tourism sector
Will only keep their job if they
get a promotion of salary raise
Want to stay only a few years
Want to stay in the company
and progress within this
company
Work in the tourism sector until
they find a better position

Séraphin

79.2%
38.5%
23%
20.8%

17.7%

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TABLE 7
TYPE

O F C O N TR AC TS

Permanent
Temporary
Casual
Civil servant
Full time
Part time

48.5%
21.5%
12.2%
10.8%
73.1%
26.9%

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
RESULTS
In Haiti the staff working in the tourism industry with a tourism
qualification are rather young with a majority of them being male.
Overall the level of qualifications of people working in the
industry is rather low, with most of them holding a qualification in
catering. The vast majority of people working in the sector are not
very dedicated to the industry. This is probably partly due to the
fact that less than 50% of those qualified do not have a permanent
job. Last but not least, a survey from a research group (URD) in
Haiti shows a very low level of trust in society and their leaders
(Broudic, 2012). As we are going to see in the following section
(4.2), trust is essential in the staff / customer transaction (Séraphin
& Butler, 2013). Basically, the situation of Haiti can be
summarised as follows:

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Dictatorship of Duvaliers
(economic crisis; poor
image of the country; less
visited destination in the
Caribbean)

Low level of qualification
Limited opportunities for
progression

Slavery (low level of trust)

Casual jobs

Low staff dedication to
the industry

Destination
performance:
Poor customer service

Figure 1. Performance of Haiti

D I S C U S SI O N S
According to Nickson (2013), there two approaches of HRM. The
soft and the hard approaches. The hard version is seen to be an
instrumental and economically rational approach. In this version
labour is a commodity / resource, the same as any other. The soft
version which is more about adopting a humanistic and
developmental approach to HRM which is intended to lead to
mutual high commitment from employees, high trust, high
productivity, etc. (Nickson, 2013). Based on the information
collected on Haiti in the previous sections of this paper, the soft
version of HRM seems to be the most suitable to discuss human
resources performance in the tourism sector in Haiti. This type of
HRM is very important as one of the long term consequences of
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the slave trade is the mistrust of tourists, hence the reason a huge
part of the population is against the development of the tourism
industry (Thernil, 2004). There is no doubt that due to the fact that
in the Caribbean tourism is viewed by some members of the
population as an enactment of slavery, it has an impact on
customer service (Séraphin and Butler, 2013) as weak institutions
and low level of trust heavily impacts on human transactions
(Nunn and Wantchekon 2011; Williamson, 2011, 2012). Customer
service being a transaction between the one offering the service
(staff/locals) and the one paying for the service (tourists/customer)
we can come to the conclusion that customer service is an issue in
the tourism sector in Haiti that organisations in the tourism sector
will have to address as the quality of customer service plays a
central part in the criteria customers use to evaluate a business and
a destination as customer service is part of the customer
experience (Nickson, 2013). Customer service (internal and
external) data is therefore another source of performance data
(Idem) that can be used to assess a business and a destination.
Training and development to equip operative-level staff with
team-working and interpersonal skills to develop their ‘service
orientation’ (Ibidem) is essential in Haiti. As the tourism and
hospitality organisations are now seeking employees who can
interact with customers and with certain types of skills, we have
combined Rodger’s seven-point plan (1952), Munro Fraser’s fivefold grading system (1966) and the information in figure (fig. 1) to
produce a customer service barometer that can be used by
organisations in the tourism sector in Haiti to recruit, assess and
train their staff. In this barometer: 1=Outstanding; 2=Good;
3=Average; 4=Inappropriate

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C U S TO M E R
Grade
1 / 2 / 3/ 4

1 / 2 / 3/ 4

1 / 2 / 3/ 4

1 / 2 / 3/ 4

1 / 2 / 3/ 4

Séraphin

TABLE 8
S E R V IC E B AR O M E TE R
Criteria
Attainments (education,
professional qualifications, work
experience necessary to work in
the tourism industry)
Special aptitudes (skills,
attributes or competencies
relevant to the tourism industry
and for the job)
Motivation and dedication of
staff to the tourism industry and
the company
Adjustment: Be able to trust
colleagues, managers and
customers and also be able to
work as part of a team
Physical characteristics: The
ability to go beyond the colour of
internal and external customers
(particularly when they are white)
to deliver a suitable customer
service

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C ONCLUSION
Slavery and the political situation in Haiti have severely impacted
customer service in the tourism industry. As customer service is a
key indicator for human resources performance, we have reached
the conclusion that Haiti is ‘scoring very low’ as a tourist
destination. Now with the increasing number of middle class
diaspora as customers and as entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in
Haiti and with new boundaries being pushed by white tourists who
want to move in the local spaces, the view of staff might change
alongside the change of demography in the sector. As human
beings are the most important and promising source of growth in
productivity and economic growth (Ojo Johnson, 2011), it is
therefore very important for Haiti to invest in its human capital
and develop an appropriate human resources strategy:

TABLE 9
HRM S TR A TE G Y
1

Develop an effective workforce
Improve the education system
Develop courses and training in
hospitality and tourism
Recruit the right students

2

Maintain an effective workforce
Improve the image of the
destination and the industry
Appropriate incentive

3

Attract an effective workforce
Continuing professional
development
Partnership industry / education
system

This strategy is all the more important as Michel (2000) claims
tourism can fully benefit a destination, only if the locals are fully
involved in the planning and development of the industry. For
Manyara and Jones (2005), micro and small scale enterprises can
increase the participation of the poor in the tourism industry. In
this conclusion we are adding that entrepreneurship in postcolonial countries can be a way for the locals to take gradual
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control of the different sectors of the industry that used to be in the
hands of the ‘masters’. Also tourism in post-colonial countries is
also a way for the locals to exorcise the pain of the past and move
forward. It is also important for post-colonial destinations to
understand their own history, not only for pragmatic reasons as it
is impossible to move forward if we don’t understand where we
come from, but also for mercantile reasons as visitors are quite
keen to learn about the destinations they are visiting.
There is little data that informs us of the beneficiary impacts of
tourism development on the poor (Holden, 2013). However,
Dupont (2009), explained that in the case of Haiti it is the
reduction of poverty that will lead to the development of tourism
and not the other way round. The Sustainable TourismEliminating Poverty (STEP) campaign created by the UNWTO
launched at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg in 2002 promotes socially, economically and
ecologically sustainable tourism aimed at alleviating poverty and
bringing jobs to people in developing countries (Holden, 2013).
The case of Haiti is an excellent case study.

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