Tourism In Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place

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In the memoir, A Small Place, written by Antiguan author, Jamaica Kincaid, she tells a personal story about her life in Antigua, and how the tourists affected lives on the island. Kincaid explains that tourists come to Antigua for relaxing vacations, but do not realize what is hiding outside of the high class resorts. Kincaid sarcastically describes the island as "more beautiful than any other islands you have seen, and they were very beautiful, in their way, but they were much too green, much too lush with vegetation, which indicated to you, the tourist, that they got quite a bit of rainfall, and rain is the very thing that you, just now, do not want..." explaining that tourists do not realize how the natives are living off of the land and its common resources, and nothing more (4). Kincaid, a Antiguan native and avid writer, explores the issues of tourism in A Small Place by writing about her hometown and presenting how common tourists can ruin the natural beauty of an island, but hurt its economy by only supporting the hotels and similar companies. Unfortunately, Kincaid is correct with her assumption of tourism within a small island.…show more content…
Visitors do not know how difficult the natives' lives are. The travel industry is the largest economy producer in the Caribbean, but the negative effects it is having on the island is worse than the benefits. Tourism pollutes their waters, as well as their lands. In a journal about Caribbean tourism, tourism is explained as "Yet the average living standards for those same islands for the corresponding period have not risen to the same extent" (Planning For Tourism Resilience In The Caribbean 37). The authors explain that even though the low income countries depend on tourism, it has negative effects that outweigh their
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