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In violence-racked Haiti, a push to spur tourism

Goal is to build resorts, attract cruise ships

January 8, 2007

JACMEL, Haiti -- On a sunny day in November, Haitian-American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean visited this mountain-fringed seaside town for the first time. Descending from a plane at the tiny airport, he said in Creole to a crowd of Haitian journalists that he could already see the country was more beautiful than Jamaica.

The comparison with Jamaica is a common one here, as people bemoan the fact that visitors flock to their Caribbean neighbor while tourism is virtually dead in Haiti because of years of unrest.

Jean had long planned to give a large, free "concert for peace" in Port-au-Prince, but the level of violence in the capital made such an event impossible. He switched venues to Jacmel's town beach, where tens of thousands of fans gathered to hear him play in December without incident.

The words "tourism" and "Haiti" once fit harmoniously together. But after the overthrow of the Duvalier dictatorship in the 1980s, the country's economy fell apart and instability reigned. In Port-au-Prince today, kidnappers and gangs humiliate Haiti's weak police force and the UN peacekeepers who support them.

The United States advises its citizens against visiting the country. And with few exceptions, travel guides to the Caribbean ignore the western half of Hispaniola, while giving extensive coverage of the resort-filled eastern side, the Dominican Republic.

But Jacmel is a different place from Port-au-Prince. Patrick Boucard, cofounder of Jacmel's annual film festival , is spearheading a music festival set for May. The music festival is part of an ongoing effort to make the outside world understand that his town is far removed from the Haiti that makes headlines overseas.

Most of Haiti " is not Port-au-Prince," Boucard said. "We should not be penalized by what happens [within] a tenth of the country."

Today, well-to-do Port-au-Prince residents visit Jacmel on weekends. They can stroll through the town, visit galleries, listen to live music, and eat grilled lobster and conch at nearby beaches. But few foreigners venture to Jacmel.

Boucard is looking for ways for tourists to visit Haiti without having to set foot in the capital. There are 15-minute flights from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel, but some visitors fear traveling on the half-mile strip of road that runs from the capital's international airport to its domestic airport -- never mind make the three-hour drive from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel, 25 miles to the south.

So Boucard is trying to get "boutique cruises," small sailing ships, to take 60 to 100 passengers from Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, to Jacmel for the music festival.

Boucard and other advocates of "integrated," or cultural, tourism don't want Haiti to become just another Caribbean get away. When Boucard envisions tourism in Haiti, piña coladas on the white sands don't feature in.

"I would like us to grow gradually with ecotourism, artisan tourism, [with a] better quality of tourists, who can appreciate our culture and arts and crafts," he said.

But to others, especially self-described realists, the poorest and least-developed country in the Americas can hardly be picky about who lands on its shores and spends money.

"If you think you're just going to do without the international corporations, you're fooling yourself," said Philippe Armand, a Haitian businessman and vice president of the Regional American Chambers of Commerce.

Armand is pushing for enclosed, all-inclusive resorts and cruise ships to come to Jacmel, among other ports. "We have to create secured environments," he said, similar to those in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

Already, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship anchors off the north of Haiti two to three times a week, and thousands of tourists spend the day on jet skis, water slides, and lounge chairs at the enclosed beach of Labadee.

As recently as a year ago, passengers were told that they were debarking not in Haiti but onto a private island off the coast of Hispaniola. Since then, a sign has been built welcoming visitors to Haiti, and some are aware that they are on the mainland, but they are penned in by razor wire, with no option of leaving the grounds.

Royal Caribbean pays $6 per passenger per day in taxes, which amounts to about $3 million per year. And hundreds of Haitians are employed at the beach. But locals say the benefits are minuscule compared with what they would be if passengers were able to enter "the real Haiti."

Officials in Milot, a small town about 16 miles and more than an hour's drive from Labadee, want Royal Caribbean to help pave the rough dirt road that connects them and let the ship's passengers make the journey.

Milot was once a significant tourist destination. It is home to the Citadel, a massive 19th-century mountain-top fort built under "King" Henri Christophe to defend Haiti against France, its former colonizer and enslaver. The monument was declared a world heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and stands as a symbol of liberty and empowerment in the world's first black republic.

Milot's mayor-elect, Telfort Paul , said he has no problem with enclosure tourism, but he also believes there is a market for tourists who want exposure to Haiti's history, culture, art, and food. He calls it "djon-djon tourism," named after a black mushroom that Haitians use to flavor rice.

In October, a delegation of more than 50 mostly African-American affiliates of the US-based Haiti Support Project toured Haiti, including Milot and the Citadel. Led by the project's head, Ron Daniels , and Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Texas Democrat, the group met with politicians, attended a Haitian vodou ceremony, and took an eight-hour bus ride across the country.

Upon his return, Daniels declared: "The participants on this extraordinary pilgrimage are returning to the United States with a commitment to be ambassadors of hope for Haiti. Their charge is to spread the word, that every person of African descent should visit the Citadel at least once in a lifetime."