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Sustainable Tourism in Martinique 65 65 CHAPTER 5 The Struggle for Sustainable Tourism in Martinique s MAURICE BURAC TRANSLATED BY JULIET MACDOWELL AND ROBERT C. A. SORENSEN The development of tourism, and the use of land to support it, increasingly preoccupies public opinion in Martinique. The decline in agriculture, the rise of the service sector, and the willingness of the French state to follow a policy of economic diversification have all contributed to a boom in tourism and cruise-ship activities. The demand from private investors for the best coastal sites, environmental damage resulting from tourist uses, and the numerous contradictions in government policy have produced a population with a heightened sensitivity to environmental matters and have stimulated the growth of a number of ecological organizations. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, various movements were organized and various actions taken by ecological groups to convince economic elites and public officials to move from a traditional concept of tourism to a more modern view of sustainable tourism. In the process of development of a regional territorial management plan for Martinique between 1993 and 1995, environmental organizations offered several proposals to stop or modify tourism development programs proposed by private investors and supported by elected local politicians, by the French state, or both. This chapter examines both past and more recent efforts to develop an environmentally sensitive tourism sector in Martinique. Tourism Development: Data from Martinique From Agriculture to Tourism Since the 1970s, economic changes have accelerated on the island. Agriculture , once the primary sector, has declined. Like other Caribbean islands, Martinique has experienced an especially marked decline in sugar cane production . Even though the rum and banana industries have survived (albeit with serious difficulties), the general tendency points toward disengagement from 66 Maurice Burac agricultural activity. Rather quickly, the tertiary or service sector has become the most dynamic in the economy. State policies and private initiatives favoring service sector development have produced the current situation, in which services represent almost three-fourths of Martinique’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and furnish the bulk of the island’s employment. In the 1970s, following the examples of other Caribbean islands, officials emphasized tourism activities in various social and economic development plans. The French national government and local public entities increased investments in infrastructure, including roads, airport modernization, and installation of running water, electricity, and sewage systems throughout Martinique’s villages. In addition, private companies investing in the tourist sector benefited from various customs and tax incentives. In 1986, a very favorable incentives package was adopted to encourage even more private investment in tourism. Public officials , pushed by conservative political parties, sought a transformation of the economy from plantation agriculture to a diversified economy in which industry and, more importantly, services would generate wealth and employment. Tourism was at the center of this plan. The financial and political push from the state, the interest of the private sector, the decrease in airline prices between France, the rest of Europe, and the French Antilles, and the desire to compensate for the decline of the North American tourist clientele (from both the United States and Canada) with an increase in European clientele were all factors that coalesced to assure a boom in tourism . The number of hotels and guest houses on the island grew rapidly. Nowadays , a varied and plentiful group of mainly European (especially French) tourists visit Martinique each year. Public Mistrust of Traditional Tourism The policies of the French state, which involved a retreat from the traditional sugar industry partly achieved by a decrease in subsidies to sugar enterprises , were felt until the 1980s. All private sugar plantations were closed, and the one remaining unit was transformed into a mixed enterprise, with publicsector participation in its financing and management. The national political parties , autonomists and independents, and the unions refused proposals made by the state while at the same time denouncing the private sector’s poor management of the sugar industry. These opposition forces disapproved of the government’s new development strategy, which they believed would create an even more artificial and externally dependent economy. Local sugar producers also tried, in vain, to fight against the loss of sugar subsidies. In 1974, the presentation of an ambitious tourism project involving 11,000 beds in Sainte Anne, in the south of the island, provided the occasion for the local opposition to express its distrust of the state’s new tourism policy and of public officials more generally. This project allowed private investors who had signed...

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