Many years ago now, I used to travel to the Caribbean, and love it. We visited a few of the regular main tourist islands and I even went so far as to go back to Jamaica for a second visit, for my honeymoon, but that is a whole other story and not one for these pages. Anyways on our first visits to the Islands we usually stayed in nice enough hotels in very nice areas on beautiful islands, and when we wanted to eat, we went out for breakfast or supper, for lunch we would buy some fruit or whatever from the local stores, maybe a loaf of bread and enough fixings to make a few sandwiches, great, no problem. If we were thirsty we would get a beverage from any number of vendors or vending machines all around the area. If we wanted to tour around the island for a day trip it was something we would arrange and have a good day of it. The All Inclusive Destination was around already in the form of Club Med and I think that Sandals Resorts had a property or two already. Travel forward in time to the last trip I took to the island of Jamaica and a visit to my first all inclusive resort. The resort itself was quite nice and so on and the food was certainly adequate, if not overly impressive, it was of course served buffet style for three meals a day. Snacks were available most times also and the beverage service was probably more than adequate, at the time I would have wanted the bars open earlier and to stay open later. So, all in all just what you want in a lay back and do nothing holiday. But therein lies the problem as well. If you left the property and went shopping in town, you were spending money that you felt you already had in the form of the all inclusive. Food and beverages outside of your resort seemed to be something alien and just downright wrong, to have to spend money on these was just not right. In retrospect I am certain that we were not the only ones to feel this way and I’m sure that it is the same in every area that the all inclusive has set up shop in.
The local business person and the local restaurateur saw a steady decline in their business because the all inclusive was psychologically trapping their guest in the resort. A large vicious circle ensued, the local independent was losing business and had to raise their prices to continue to make a living, the tourist visiting felt spending more after purchasing an all inclusive vacation was not necessary and the prices were going up steadily. The all inclusive resorts were making their money on their business model just fine, and could afford to expand and advertise even more, they have become, in some areas almost the only way to visit those areas.
The one other problem with these resorts is that they are too big and too successful, they all copy one another since the big boys fine tuned the experience and the newer players emulated them, so one resort is very similar to the next, and other than the name of the village or town that you are nearby the palm trees are the same, the beach is sandy and the water is salty and a perfect temperature. But you see nothing new, you experience nothing new and you more than likely do nothing new. I haven’t been back in some time now, but I’m sure that the local independents are still hurting and the prices are still going up, inflation notwithstanding.
Now here is the correlation. The chain restaurants, franchises, and the big catering companies are killing off the small, local independents as surely as the all inclusive giants are killing off the local businesses in the tropics. The large chains have the money behind them to weather out the booms and the busts in the economy. They can keep the under performing store open with the profits from the flagship store and the marketing and advertising is national and usually a well thought out and successful campaign. They have the purchasing power to negotiate better deals with suppliers so that they can offer their menu items at lower prices and they can shave a couple of points off of their margins by making it up with volume. Some of these chains are getting big enough I’m sure that they even get preferred tenant pricing when they go into the new mall in your neighborhood. Their control systems are standardized throughout the chain so that the accountants can tally up the profits more easily, and the training systems can turn a high school student into a “fully trained” staff member in no time. But once again, same as the islands and the all inclusive resorts, you get a good meal, you are greeted and sat promptly. The meal is just fine, and there are no surprises. You do not get to experience anything new, you don’t get to try a new cuisine or something prepared in new and exciting manner because this does not fit their business model of success and profits. The chains make it all happen with volume and tried and trusted menu items. I guess that one way of looking at the whole thing is that the chains and franchise outlets are in the business of making money from selling food. They aren’t in the restaurant business as I would like to think of it. The same thing goes for my first observation, the all inclusive giants are in the business of making money from providing rooms and meals. They aren’t in the business of offering vacations.
So the next time you find yourself planning an evening out, think about this and try and give your local independent restaurant a try, support the locals and maybe they won’t all die off and make eating out a boring event.
