a human resources approach of haiti’s performance as a tourist destination

Tourisme & Territoires / Tourism & Territories Volume 3 (2013)

Séraphin Tourter.com 163

A HUMAN RESOURCES APPROACH OF HAITI ’S

PERFORMANCE AS A TOURIST DESTINATION

Hugues Séraphin1

Abstract

Haiti has been a tourist destination out of bounds for a long period. The country is now experiencing a new era in its tourism management (Séraphin, 2012a). In this paper we have decided to analyse the performance of the ex ‘Pearl of the Caribbean’ from a human resources point of view as we are aiming to offer a counterpoint to the rhetoric view of destination performances as being mainly an economic element. The paper also seeks to answer two key questions:

(1) To what extent has slavery impacted on the tourism sector in Haiti?

(2) What are the challenges from a human resources management approach?

To answer the above questions we have opted for a qualitative analysis with an inductive and exploratory approach. The objective is to find out an indicator that can be used to evaluate the human resources in the tourism sector in Haiti. The findings indicate customer service as a valid indicator. Haiti has a very low profile when it comes to customer service. The lack of dedication of the people working in the industry, the lack of trust and the situation (political, economic and social) of the country are playing a major role in this poor performance. A soft human resources management approach has been identified as the most suitable way to deal with the situation.

Key words: Haiti, Slave trade, Customer service, Performance, Human Resources Management

1 Ph.D PGCE MA. The University of Winchester (Faculty BLS), England.

CREDDI-LEAD EA 2438 Guyane (Université des Antilles Guyane, France).



INTRODUCTION

Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world used to be the first tourist destination in the Caribbean between 1940e -1960e (Séraphin, 2010). Since the appointment of Stephanie Balmir-Villedrouin as the tourist minister, the destination is going through a new era (Séraphin, 2012a). However, lots still needs to be done to improve the quality of the product ‘Haiti’ particularly in the hospitality sector (Séraphin, 2012b) particularly when it comes to Customer Relation Management (Séraphin, 2013b). Performance measurement is therefore essential as the basis for continuous improvement and for designing an adequate system not only to support the destination but also to be able to take the right decision for this destination (Onyango et al., 2012) as the success is determined among other things by competitive advantages. Those competitive advantages are established as a result of effective resources deployment (Botti et al., 2011). Subsequently, performance measurement becomes key. As people are the most important source of sustained competitive advantage (Adeleye, 2011) a human resources approach to analyse Haiti’s performance as a tourist destination makes total sense. Moreover, over time, the importance of non-financial measures emerged as another approach to performance measurement with a greater involvement of staff for continuous improvement (Onyango, 2012).

Despite the fact that Haiti has been hailed by many people including the Secretary of the WTO as a destination with a huge potential (Séraphin, 2013a), ‘the Taiwan of the Caribbean’ (Thomson, 2004) has also been pointed out as a destination with too many ‘amateurs’ working in the tourism industry (Theodat, 2004). This paper is particularly interesting because it provides a clear view and thorough analysis of a destination that used to be a leading destination (Séraphin, 2010) in the 1940s without a particularly trained workforce and another view of the same destination some 70 years later, struggling to get back on the world tourism map. Over the years training has become central, as without well-trained staff it is difficult to be able to compete against other destinations. In the future, the most successful nations will be those which develop high quality, skilled and motivated workforces and those which make the most of the talents of all their people (NACETT, 1994). As Human Resources Management is broadly concerned with people management such as personnel management and organisational behaviour (Nickson, 2013), what is of particular interest in this paper is the exploration of the long term consequences of the slave trade on the tourism



and hospitality sectors in Haiti (Séraphin & Butler, 2013) and the challenge from human resources Management.

A very limited number of academic papers have been written about the tourism industry in Haiti as if there is nothing to tell about this country from a tourism angle. Dore (2010) is for instance the only one to have written a thesis about the tourism sector in Haiti with a clear focus on tourism as a field of study. In this paper we are going to essentially rely on Dore’s thesis: Politique de formation professionnelle et d’emploi en Haïti. Le cas du secteur du tourisme (1980-2010) in order to have a good understanding of the courses/training in offer in Haiti as well as a demography and situation of the people working in the sector. We are also going to use Séraphin’s papers to get information about the tourism sector in Haiti. His research is about entrepreneurship in the tourism sector in Haiti (Séraphin, 2012a, 2013a); tourism literature on Haiti (Séraphin, 2012b); guided tours (Séraphin, 2013b) and the impacts of the slave trade on the tourism industry and hospitality sector in Haiti (Séraphin & Butler 2013). Books and academic papers on Human Resources Management and academic papers on tourism destination and destination performance will also be used. The literature used in this paper clearly highlight our objective to counterpoint the rhetoric views of destination performances as being mainly an economic element. The human side is also very important particularly in the Caribbean where all the islands have been through slavery and are relying on the tourism industry as the way ahead for their economy. This study is therefore going to address two key questions:

(1) To what extent has slavery impacted on the tourism sector in Haiti?

(2) What are the challenges from a human resources management approach?

To answer the above questions we have opted for a qualitative analysis with an inductive and exploratory approach.

In order to understand how human resources can be used as a tool to assess the performance of a tourist destination, our paper unfolds in three steps: (1) The profile of the studied destination (2) An analysis of the key concepts (3) Establish the importance of human resources in the tourism sector in a postcolonial destination.



THE PROFILE OF THE STUDIED DESTINATION

H ISTOR Y

Haiti is between the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. It is almost impossible to refer to the period of the slave trade in Haiti without referring to Toussaint L’Ouverture, also called the ‘Bonaparte of the Antilles’ who set free all Haitian slaves. Despite the fact that he recognised the sovereign rights of France, in 1801 Toussaint L’ Ouverture was seized by the French in Cap-Français and put on board a ship and ferried as prisoner to France in 1802. In 1803 he was found dead. In 1804, Dessaline declared the independence of Haiti. Haiti became the first black republic. Dessaline then ordered the massacre of most of the whites who had remained on the island (Hector & Hurbon, 2009 cited in Gilles 2012). However, despite the abolition of slavery, the spirit of slavery remains in the form of a systematic pillaging of the public funds by those in office which has kept the people in poverty (Thomson, 2004). Haiti was once the richest French colony. It was even called the ‘Pearl of the Antilles’, but today it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Indicators witness a very poor level of human development: Life expectancy (62 years), infant mortality (80%), maternal mortality (523 per 100000 live births), and adult illiteracy (50%), unemployment among the active population (around 60%), etc. The vulnerability of the Haitian population is very high with 65% of the population living below the poverty threshold (Roc, 2008). Between 1800 and 2009, the service sector moved from less than 5% to 60% of the GDP of Haiti. The move from the primary sector as being the main sector of the economy of the country to the service sector is mainly due to a change of activity of a huge part of the population (Bénédique et al, 2010).

TOU RIS M IN HAITI

Tourism is often described as one of the world’s largest industries (Cooper and Hall, 2008, p. 252). When it comes to the Caribbean most people think about sunny, white beach paradise islands, colourful cocktails and lively music. Because the region is very diverse, not all the islands are ‘vested in the branding and marketing of paradise’ (Sheller, 2004, p. 23). For instance, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have two different images. On the one hand we have one of the most visited island of the Caribbean (The Dominican Republic), on the other hand, Haiti, branded as an



insecure destination (Higate and Henry, 2009), is perceived as a place where the worst is always likely to happen (Bonnet, 2010). Haiti was the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean between 1940e – 1960e (Séraphin, 2010) and as such attracted an international jet set. Mick Jagger, Charles Addams, Jackie Kennedy, etc. were among those who popularised Haiti (Thomson, 2004). In fact, in 1951, the island received 10,788 visitors and in 1956, 67,700 tourists visited the island. The number of tourists had multiplied by 6 in 5 years (Jules and Laplanche, 2006). In 1957, the dictatorship and the atmosphere of terror organised by Francois Duvalier and his Tontons Macoutes, crippled the tourism industry of the country. When Jean-Claude Duvalier became president in 1972, the situation of the island improved slightly. In the late 1970s and 1980s things changed drastically for Haiti. During this decade the destination went through a severe economic crisis which developed into a socio-political crisis. Between 1987 and 2004, the number of tourists went from 239.200 in 1987 to 108.868 in 2004, which represents a decrease of more than 54% of the number of visitors in 17 years. Nowadays, Haiti is one of the least visited islands for three main reasons: The political instability; the climate of insecurity and last but not least, the lack of facilities for tourists (Séraphin, 2011).

KEY CONCEPTS ANALYSIS

SLA VERY AN D ITS L EGA CY

The Portuguese sea captain Antam Gonçalvez became the first white man to enslave Africans on the West coast of Africa and take them away by sea in 1441 (Reader, 1998). For the following 400 years this atrocious trade in humans was considered to be a legitimate form of commerce by Europeans, Arabs and Africans themselves. Approximately 18 million slaves were exported from tropical Africa between 1500 and the late 1800s (Idem). The devastation, trauma, dehumanisation and domination wrought by slavery and the slave trade have been severely underestimated (Ogude, 1981; Kusimba, 2004 and Reader, 1998). Africa was ruled by fear, insecurity and terror, minimising legitimate exchange and confining people to ethnic boundaries with profound social, political, cultural, economic and psychological impacts on African societies and peoples (Kusimba, 2004; Obadina, 2008). In order to survive it was inevitable that a culture of mistrust evolved (Nunn & Wantchekon, 2011). Ogude (1981) contends that the common shared racial memory of slavery has defined and



continues to shape black people today; slavery is the fate of an entire race, unfinished business.

TOU RIS M IN D EV EL OPI NG COUN TRI ES

There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether tourism is a godsend or an evil. Wagner cited in Crick (1989) points out that an industry as complex as tourism, which involves individual, local, national and international levels in addition to economic, social and cultural factors cannot be consistently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for a third world country. The impact of tourism on the contemporary world is profound. Apart from war and insecurity, it accounts for the largest movement of human populations. It was the single largest item in world trade until the oil price hikes in the early 1970s having grown by 10% per annum since the 60s. Many third world countries have chosen the tourism industry as a central development strategy, strongly encouraged in the 60s by such organisations as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), World Bank and United Nations. The leisure seeking tourists from wealthy countries would lead to economic advancement in the poor host countries. Retrospectively, binding the growth of a third world country to the affluence of Europe and North America when it is the very forces behind that affluence that maintains the under development status quo of the third world seems far too simplistic (Crick, 1989). Investments in infrastructure such as buildings and transport are used solely by tourists to the exclusion of the locals. Furthermore, tax free profits and financial incentives offered to businesses by third world governments to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) open the doors to corruption and fraud. Moreover, the majority of jobs created for the locals are unskilled and low paid whilst the effect of tourism raises land and food prices, exposes the locals to the conspicuous consumption of the tourist and recreates the structure of the colonial situation (Idem) which this paper contends has its origins in the slave trade. Since the 1980s there is a growing recognition that tourism requires more equality among all participants which has led to alternative forms of tourism where less foreign capital, more local people, food and architecture are engaged (ibidem).

SOCI AL R EPR ES ENT ATI ON

Social representations are built on a shared knowledge and understanding of a common reality (Moscovici, 1961). The key point is that social representations constitute collective systems of meaning which may be expressed, or whose effects may be



observed in values, ideas and practices (Duveen &Lloyd, 1993). They are embodied in habitual behaviour, in formal and informal communication. In other words, social representations are products of interconnectedness between people and processes of references through which we conceive the world (Deaux & Philogene, 2001). Tourism development appears to be an interesting topic for the attention of a social representation framework (Meliou & Maroudas, 2010). Subsequently, social representation can be used to understand how different groups think about tourism (Pearce et al. 1991). Haiti is a former French colony (Thomson, 2004) inhabited by former slaves from sub-Saharan Africa who had been exploited (Pulvar, 2006). It therefore shares with Africa a common European colonisation legacy. Social representations can be part of what Haiti (and even the Caribbean) and Africa have in common.

Tourism in third world countries is strongly associated with servility, which this paper contends harks back to hegemonic legacies left by slavery, breeding resentment. Unofficially the extent of this servility also embraces prostitution and exploitation on all sides. Whilst the focus of this paper is on the effects of the slave trade on the performance of Haiti as a tourist destination the tourist needs to be mentioned beyond their ideas of stereotypes. When on holiday in a world of play and freedom rather than work and structure, the tourist can unshackle himself from his normal life. He can be indulgent rather than responsible, promiscuous rather than chaste, spend rather than save (Crick, 1989). Whilst perpetuating and reinforcing stereotypes, tourism creates a damaging image of the third world that could be detrimental for development (Idem). Nunn & Wantchekon (2011) have indicated that individuals whose ancestors were heavily raided during the slave trade are less trusting today. They have also pointed out that most of the impact of the slave trade is through factors that are internal to the individual, such as cultural norms, beliefs and values. Thus, Ian Thomson, in ‘Bonjour blanc, a journey through Haiti’ (2004) explains that tourists in Haiti are not just tourists, they are white people: ‘Blanc’. They are constantly referred to by their skin colour. In the tourism and hospitality sector this can be an issue particularly when it comes to customer service. Jacques Maillot, ex CEO of Nouvelles Frontieres (a French T.O) explained that in the French Caribbean, locals perceived tourism as a re-enactment of slavery, hence the poor customer service and the complaints from customers (Perri, 2004). This paper makes a unique contribution of the representation of tourism for countries that have been through the slave trade. In a way this paper also contributes to the meta-literature related to black culture and identity with an application to the tourism sector.



TH E ‘B L AN C ’ IN HAITI

Séraphin (2012b) established that ‘Bonjour blanc, a journey through Haiti’ is a good travel writing book as it weaves a lot of information, raises the reader’s emotions and energy and gets people on their feet. It gives a vivid insight into a narrative of a way of life which is relatively in balance punctuated by terrible disaster, where balance is sometimes restored. It is full of opposing forces - Thomson often expresses many contradicting or even mixed feelings about and for Haiti and the Haitians. It deals with fundamental conflicts between subjective expectation and cruel reality, and displays the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness; it looks behind the mask. This journey through Haiti also appeared as a quest for the ‘Grail’. The ‘Grail’ for Thomson is the quest of the true nature of Haiti. To find the object of his quest he went all over the country talking to different people. At the end Thomson achieved his objective. ‘Bonjour blanc, a journey through Haiti’ is a remarkable achievement giving wonderful vignettes from Haitian culture and history beyond CNN’s reach. Ian Thomson spent most of his time interacting with locals who were either Haitian born (Enoch, the guide; Richard Morse, owner of the Hotel Oloffson; etc.) or foreigners who have been living in Haiti for a long time (Aida from Italy and owner of the cafe Napolitan; Eleanor Snear, American born and head of the Haitian-American Institute; etc.). So, his universe can be described as cosmopolitan.

Thomson got the most out of the locals. They are depicted in ‘Bonjour blanc’ as the ones conveying all the information Ian Thomson needed to write his travel writing. Séraphin (2013) even compared the locals to tour guides. But what did the locals get from Thomson? How did they perceive Ian Thomson? Based on the fact that there is not a balance between the number of visitors (coming to Haiti) and the number of locals (Haitians) going to the country of the visitors, the relationship is a de facto relationship where locals and visitors are not on the same level with one dominating the other (Michel, 2000). Thus, Ian Thomson was always referred as being the ‘blanc’ (white man). In other words, Ian Thomson’s presence in Haiti can be considered as being an allegory of the slave trade period with Thomson being the ‘wealth sucker’ and the locals ‘the providers’. Ian Thomson was also perceived as the ‘cash cow’, a source of potential income for the locals. Many times he was asked for money by the locals: ‘Blanc, blanc, Ba moin un gourde blanc’ (Thomson, 2004, p. 141); ‘Blanc, blanc, dollar ! dollar ! for egg ! (Thomson, 2004, p. 143) ; ‘eh blanc, gimme a dollar’ (Thomson, 2004). At no point in the travel writing was a relationship of friendship described despite the fact that Thomson almost spent a year in Haiti. But as



Thomson clearly highlighted, ‘A Blanc can never really get to know the Haitians. Not deep down, anyway’ (Thomson, 2004, p. 221). Korstanje (2012) also argued that the degree of hospitality or hostility is often circumscribed to two major factors one of them being a previous history of disputes between hosts and guests.

HU MAN R ESO UR CES I N TH E TO URI S M S ECTO R I N HAITI

According to De Silva (1997), without the right kind of human capital a country will fail to deliver growth. The same can be said about any firm where human resources are the core competences and the most important source of sustained competitive advantage (Adeleye, 2011). For Nickson (2013), Human Resources Management is the means by which an organisation can gain competitive advantage. All the information previously mentioned can also be applied to a tourist destination as besides comparative advantages and price, many other variables determine the competitiveness of their dominion (Botti et al, 2013). In this paper, we have decided to consider human resources. Performance measurement is essential as it offers an effective method of determining whether or not an organisation (in our case, a destination) is meeting its goals and its mission. Performance measurement is also essential for improvement (Onyango et al., 2012). Using some data from Dulce’s thesis (2010), we have generated the following tables in order to provide a very specific feature of the workforce or human resources working in the tourism industry in Haiti.

TA B L E 1 GE NDE R IN TH E T OUR IS M S ECT OR I N HAIT I

With a qualification in tourism Male 61.5%

Female 38.5%

TAB LE 2

AGE O F ST AF F IN TH E T OUR ISM S EC TOR IN HAI TI

Staff 20-24 9.2% Staff 25-29 17.7% Staff 30-34 30.8% Staff 35-39 42.3%



TA B L E 3 TR AI N IN G AND C OUR SES I N T OUR I SM I N HAI T I

University Bsc in hospitality, catering and tourism Level V 70% Level IV 20% Level III 10%

TA B L E 4 QU ALIF IC ATI ON OF S T AFF IN THE TO URI SM SEC TOR

CAP 44.6% BEP 27% BTS 12.3% Bsc 11.5% BT 4.6%

TA B L E 5 SEC TOR OF TH E T OUR IS M S ECT OR WH ERE Q U ALI FIE D S TAFF

ARE W ORK IN G

Catering 35.4% Leisure 28%

Hospitality 15.3% Transport 13.7%

Travel 7.7%

TA B L E 6 WHAT T HE S T AFF TH IN K AB OU T THE TO URI SM SEC TOR

Not quite sure they want to stay in the tourism sector

79.2%

Will only keep their job if they get a promotion of salary raise

38.5%

Want to stay only a few years 23% Want to stay in the company and progress within this company

20.8%

Work in the tourism sector until they find a better position

17.7%



TA B L E 7 TY PE OF C ON TR AC TS

Permanent 48.5% Temporary 21.5%

Casual 12.2% Civil servant 10.8%

Full time 73.1% Part time 26.9%

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

RES UL TS

In Haiti the staff working in the tourism industry with a tourism qualification are rather young with a majority of them being male. Overall the level of qualifications of people working in the industry is rather low, with most of them holding a qualification in catering. The vast majority of people working in the sector are not very dedicated to the industry. This is probably partly due to the fact that less than 50% of those qualified do not have a permanent job. Last but not least, a survey from a research group (URD) in Haiti shows a very low level of trust in society and their leaders (Broudic, 2012). As we are going to see in the following section (4.2), trust is essential in the staff / customer transaction (Séraphin & Butler, 2013). Basically, the situation of Haiti can be summarised as follows:



Figure 1. Performance of Haiti

D IS CUS SION S

According to Nickson (2013), there two approaches of HRM. The soft and the hard approaches. The hard version is seen to be an instrumental and economically rational approach. In this version labour is a commodity / resource, the same as any other. The soft version which is more about adopting a humanistic and developmental approach to HRM which is intended to lead to mutual high commitment from employees, high trust, high productivity, etc. (Nickson, 2013). Based on the information collected on Haiti in the previous sections of this paper, the soft version of HRM seems to be the most suitable to discuss human resources performance in the tourism sector in Haiti. This type of HRM is very important as one of the long term consequences of

Dictatorship of Duvaliers

(economic crisis; poor

image of the country; less

visited destination in the

Caribbean)

Low level of qualification

Limited opportunities for

progression

Casual jobs

Slavery (low level of trust)

Low staff dedication to

the industry

Destination

performance:

Poor customer service



the slave trade is the mistrust of tourists, hence the reason a huge part of the population is against the development of the tourism industry (Thernil, 2004). There is no doubt that due to the fact that in the Caribbean tourism is viewed by some members of the population as an enactment of slavery, it has an impact on customer service (Séraphin and Butler, 2013) as weak institutions and low level of trust heavily impacts on human transactions (Nunn and Wantchekon 2011; Williamson, 2011, 2012). Customer service being a transaction between the one offering the service (staff/locals) and the one paying for the service (tourists/customer) we can come to the conclusion that customer service is an issue in the tourism sector in Haiti that organisations in the tourism sector will have to address as the quality of customer service plays a central part in the criteria customers use to evaluate a business and a destination as customer service is part of the customer experience (Nickson, 2013). Customer service (internal and external) data is therefore another source of performance data (Idem) that can be used to assess a business and a destination. Training and development to equip operative-level staff with team-working and interpersonal skills to develop their ‘service orientation’ (Ibidem) is essential in Haiti. As the tourism and hospitality organisations are now seeking employees who can interact with customers and with certain types of skills, we have combined Rodger’s seven-point plan (1952), Munro Fraser’s five-fold grading system (1966) and the information in figure (fig. 1) to produce a customer service barometer that can be used by organisations in the tourism sector in Haiti to recruit, assess and train their staff. In this barometer: 1=Outstanding; 2=Good; 3=Average; 4=Inappropriate



TA B L E 8 CUS TOM ER SE RVICE B AR OME TER

Grade Criteria 1 / 2 / 3/ 4

Attainments (education, professional qualifications, work experience necessary to work in the tourism industry)

1 / 2 / 3/ 4 Special aptitudes (skills, attributes or competencies relevant to the tourism industry and for the job)

1 / 2 / 3/ 4 Motivation and dedication of staff to the tourism industry and the company

1 / 2 / 3/ 4

Adjustment: Be able to trust colleagues, managers and customers and also be able to work as part of a team

1 / 2 / 3/ 4

Physical characteristics: The ability to go beyond the colour of internal and external customers (particularly when they are white) to deliver a suitable customer service



CONCLUSION Slavery and the political situation in Haiti have severely impacted customer service in the tourism industry. As customer service is a key indicator for human resources performance, we have reached the conclusion that Haiti is ‘scoring very low’ as a tourist destination. Now with the increasing number of middle class diaspora as customers and as entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in Haiti and with new boundaries being pushed by white tourists who want to move in the local spaces, the view of staff might change alongside the change of demography in the sector. As human beings are the most important and promising source of growth in productivity and economic growth (Ojo Johnson, 2011), it is therefore very important for Haiti to invest in its human capital and develop an appropriate human resources strategy:

TA B L E 9 HRM S TR ATE G Y

1 Develop an effective workforce � Improve the education system

� Develop courses and training in hospitality and tourism

� Recruit the right students

2 Maintain an effective workforce � Improve the image of the destination and the industry

� Appropriate incentive

3 Attract an effective workforce � Continuing professional development

� Partnership industry / education system

This strategy is all the more important as Michel (2000) claims tourism can fully benefit a destination, only if the locals are fully involved in the planning and development of the industry. For Manyara and Jones (2005), micro and small scale enterprises can increase the participation of the poor in the tourism industry. In this conclusion we are adding that entrepreneurship in post-colonial countries can be a way for the locals to take gradual



control of the different sectors of the industry that used to be in the hands of the ‘masters’. Also tourism in post-colonial countries is also a way for the locals to exorcise the pain of the past and move forward. It is also important for post-colonial destinations to understand their own history, not only for pragmatic reasons as it is impossible to move forward if we don’t understand where we come from, but also for mercantile reasons as visitors are quite keen to learn about the destinations they are visiting.

There is little data that informs us of the beneficiary impacts of tourism development on the poor (Holden, 2013). However, Dupont (2009), explained that in the case of Haiti it is the reduction of poverty that will lead to the development of tourism and not the other way round. The Sustainable Tourism-Eliminating Poverty (STEP) campaign created by the UNWTO launched at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 promotes socially, economically and ecologically sustainable tourism aimed at alleviating poverty and bringing jobs to people in developing countries (Holden, 2013). The case of Haiti is an excellent case study.



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