Berzin said:
so let me chime in.
Tourism does'nt count. The investments made in tourism are by foriegn-owned companies who extract the profits and the average dominican has to be content with just another low-level job with no advancement opportunities in some BS resort.
I would love for once to have somebody explain to me how tourism is good for the DR in terms of its' workers or for the overall economic well-being of the island.
Overall, tourism directly and indirectly benefits the economy of the entire country. From construction, transportation, and commerce to agriculture, manufacturing, and telecommunications. All those sectors and others see an increase in economic activity, much higher than if the economy had to solely depend on the local middle and upper classes.
In terms of workers, they are being productive when in previous years when tourism was smaller and/or non-existent they would not have been as productive.
Much of flow of money due to the tourist trade is taxed quite heavily by the government, which allows for taxes on other things directed to the population at large to be as low as they are. This is taking into account that taxes in the DR on average are quite high, they would have been even higher if it was not for the tourist trade.
Additionally, improvements in the infrastructure helps minimize various transaction costs (from less time to travel across the country to less money spent on gasoline as gasoline consumption actually decreases on a per mile/kilometer basis than it does on a secondary and/or urban road, etc).
Also, there is another aspect of the tourist trade that many Dominicans benefit from and this aspect is often off the books. What is it? The goodwill of many of the visitors who decide to give the people needed material things and may even volunteer to help the poor in certain ways. This is a help that most likely would have never been created had the tourist never set foot on the island.
Tourist related degrees are highly popular in Dominican universities. That's a new opportunity that students in higher education are aiming towards, thanks to the tourist trade.
-NALs
Edited to add: Joshua, keep in mind that how a group of people view a country lags behind the actual economic transformation taking place. This is a normal part of human nature. Once a certain generation has a certain image imbedded in their minds of some place or something, they will not change their points of views and they will rejects any indication of change as long as their beliefs of what change should be are not met. Thus, if you were to ask an American in the 1950s whether the Japanese were ever going to be a rich country, most would probably laugh and wonder if you were joking. Afterall, Japan was a dirt poor country that spew out of its factories cheap and unreliable goods (much like modern China, I might add). Talk to whomever of that generation is still alive and you will experience two types of reactions:
1. The one's who refuse to believe the fact that Japan has actually become a rich nation in less than a century and thus, they either reject such reality or they are making "predictions" that the Japanese miracle won't last or they will come up with excuses that Japan simply got lucky.
2. Or you could experience those who are simply in disbelief of what Japan has been able to do. This disbelief is express in mere shock, they will often say "when I was a little kid Japan was nothing, where are the cheap stuff came from. Look at it today, unbelievable, etc".
Contemporary young generations have a view of Japan that is radically different from those of previous generations. Japan is no longer seen as a threat, it's seen a progressive, and only the best things come from Japan.'
That change in attitude towards Japan took a generation or two of being exposed to the new Japan.
Much in the same manner the image of the DR and its developmental patterns will change as new generations comes along and they begin to judge the DR from their life time onward as oppose to what the DR was in the past and thus, can't possibly become something better in the future, which is a typical attitude from older generations.
Having said all of this, there is no denial that today the DR is much more economically advance that it was in the 1950s. In fact, the DR has leaped along in many of its aspects since then, but different cohort groups see things differently, even though they are seeing the exact samething.
The cup is either half empty or half full. But, it's the same cup!
-NALs