UK charity Tourism concern warns that poorer labour rights and conditions are the price of all-inclusive holidays.
Money-conscious tourists have made the all-inclusive holiday one of tourism’s biggest growth areas. The popularity of trips in which everything is laid on and paid for upfront is rising fast, with demand up by a third in the past decade.
A new report
from Tourism Concern to be published later this month will add to fears that
the trend is hurting the local people in all-inclusive resort areas who depend
on tourism for their livelihoods. Research looking into all-inclusive hotels in
Tenerife, Kenya and Barbados found that hotel staff had worse working
conditions and labour rights and were subjected to more stress and longer hours
than those in other hotels.
All-inclusive
resorts have such tight margins, with guests paying very little per room, there’s
little left to pay those at the bottom of the supply chain – the hotel workers.
Workers at all-inclusive hotels were shown to receive significantly less in
tips, a perk on which they are often heavily reliant.
Mark Watson,
head of Tourism Concern, said the all-inclusive industry was “stifling
businesses outside the enclave and very few benefits are reaching local
communities. We are getting reports of tourists being told that their insurance
doesn’t cover them if they leave their hotel grounds and sometimes people will
barely know where they are, paying to just sit by a pool in the sunshine.”
Industry
experts say that the rising popularity of all-inclusive holidays is down to the
convenience and cost effectiveness of paying one price for everything upfront,
along with the extra security of not having to navigate around a foreign place.
Last year, according to research by TravelSupermarket, the online comparison website, more than one in 10 British holidaymakers went on an all-inclusive trip for their main holiday – one third of all package holidays sold.
One large
holiday company, First Choice, now sells only all-inclusive breaks.
However,
this latest report from the ethical tourism charity comes amid other research
which suggests that communities suffer from the enclosed style of an
all-inclusive resort.
Complete
with their own bars, restaurants and entertainment venues, the resorts leave
guests with little or no incentive to go anywhere else, whether that be to eat
in local restaurants, visit local nightclubs or pay entry fees to local
attractions or hire local guides or drivers. The tour companies – few of which
are owned locally – pocket most of the spending money.
Tourists
also use vast quantities of resources – energy and water in particular – and
create significantly more waste than local people.
Tourism Concern
agreed that the resorts do bring in jobs, albeit low-paid, short-contract ones
that provide little job security.
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Categories: all inclusive holidays, tourism concern
