By Nelson A. King
Published: Saturday, January 2, 2010 5:58 PM EST
The world’s largest cruise ship has made Haiti, its first port of call.
Officials said Royal Caribbean’s 16-deck, 225,000-ton Oasis of the Seas steamed back to Miami last Friday from the company’s private port in Labadee, northern Haiti, on its maiden voyage.
The ship, with about 4,000 passengers, were met last Thursday by Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and other officials, and treated to folk dances, music and art.
Haitian officials hope a US$100 million, 25-year effort by Royal Caribbean to improve the cruise port in Labadee will help rebuild tourism and bring investment to the impoverished, French-speaking Caribbean country.
The Oasis touts a range of innovative and revolutionary features set to change the face of cruise travel forever.
With its split superstructure creating wide open interior spaces, officials said Oasis has captured the imagination of cruisers and non-cruisers alike.
“Until you get onboard, you don’t realize how it all came together the grandeur of it,” said Richard Fain, Royal Caribbean International’s chairman and CEO.
“Larger doesn’t mean less personalized but the ability to make it more personalized,” he adds.
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COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG
Labadee is an interesting phenomena.
For years the tour companies brought customers to a place called Labadee, but never mentioned they were in Haiti. It was like Shangri-La, a mysterious place without roots. Haitians were no allowed in, unless they were working there. After all, you didn’t want a bunch of poor black folks upsetting the fee paying tourists. The fact that workers spoke Creole usefully segregated them from the passengers. Why should it increase tourism and help investment when most of the people who recall Labadee wake up, like an Irishman with a hangover, and think they were somewhere else?
A cynic must wonder who benefits from Labadee. It would be interesting to see the statistics on taxes paid into the Haitian treasury. I will bet that they are zero and that the Labadee concept has actually created a negative balance on the books. I would also bet that an ongoing series of Haitians, in the upper level of government, have done very well financially from the Labadee concept.
Who controls the concessions??
The Oasis of the Sea is an obscene example of luxury, flaunted in the face of very poor nation in which the per-capita income hovers around $250 per annum although there is no real economic basis for calculation.
I once saw a proposal that focused on the Citadelle, a huge fortress built by King Christophe in the eighteen hundreds, situated on a mountaintop near near Cap Haitian. (and Labadee) It depended upon a couple of cruise ships per month and could have grossed over $100,000,000 per year. And these boats were in the 2,000 passenger class! Big dollars but the real people of Haiti would have received pennies, if anything at all.
Tourism is one of the best generators of hard cash, to help an economy. A real tourist industry could turn Haitian life around. However, to succeed, there must be a situation in which the cash generated has a trickle-down effect. It must be shared, otherwise there is no point in becoming involved.
And paying Haitians $2 US per day to sweep the beach and pick up empty Diet Coke bottles will not turn the economy around.
I am not one of those Left Wing Loonies who attack anything and everything in an effort to judge the Haitian economy on American standards. But, I am one who believes fair is fair. If there is a lot of money being made, the Haitian people should share in the benefits…and, by “the Haitian people” I do not mean President Preval, Prime Minister Bellerive and the other pirates in government, and the camp followers like Elizabeth Delatour Preval.
These are small things the Traditional Society should be reminded of when it comes time to vote for a president later this year.
Collins