Covid-19 and Sargassum blooms: impacts and social issues in a mass tourism destination (Mexican Caribbean)

When the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Mexican Caribbean in late March 2020, this world-renown tourist destination had already been struggling with Sargassum influxes for 5 years. The nature and magnitude of these two impacts are not directly comparable, but both have contributed to profoundly transforming the region. As extreme COVID-19 containment measures were implemented nationwide, the tourism industry contracted by 98% as over 23 million visitors failed to arrive in 2020 and 400 daily flights stopped landing at Cancun Airport. Sargassum accumulations on Caribbean beaches, and their collection, containment and removal had been a challenging socioeconomic issue in the Caribbean region years before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the tourist industry. We explore Beck's concept of a risk society as an approach to these socioenvironmental impacts. We analyze five premises about risk society, combining them with a mainly ethnography methodology involving 61 informants. We present the results in terms of impacts. Using the concept of trajectory based on pandemic event chronology, we review the main stages of the pandemic during the research period (May to July 2020) and how the studied population worked to prevent virus infection and spread. We employ narratives to analyze risk perception both of the Sargassum influx and the pandemic. The discussion highlights the importance of moving beyond nature/society dichotomies and dualisms. In summary, the profound transformations caused by these impacts provide a unique opportunity for the Mexican Caribbean to reconstitute itself in a way that encompasses the world risk society concept, perhaps in a more socially and environmentally resilient incarnation.