Conflicts Generated by the Construction of Tourist Centres Financed with Transnational Spanish Capital in the Caribbean and Central America

Neoliberal logic vindicates the benefits of transnational tourism due to the assumed trickle-down effect, based on the notion that this lavish consumption benefits the collectivity. However, accumulation by dispossession -of natural resources and even culture - and the resulting polarization leads to impoverishment, conflicts and fear. Global tourism lead by transnational capital has resorted to a bunker-style all-inclusive holiday formula (hotel complexes, private housing estates and cruise ships) in the world-system peripheral areas. This paper examines the transnationalization of Spanish tourist capital. Balearic hotel chains exemplify the process of accumulation by dispossession in the Caribbean and Central America. They have received support and subsidies from host nations and the Spanish and Balearic governments. The diffusion and penetration of the hotel chains in those areas have resulted in commodification of land and natural resources. Moreover, this process has also led to processes of gentrification related to tourism and dispossession of local populations.