Tourism in the Wake of COVID : To Travel or Not To Travel?

After months of isolation and quarantine, I know many must be desperate to get out into the fresh air once again, to travel to both new and familiar destinations, if for nothing else, just for a change of scenery. 

I don’t blame you, truly. Before booking flights for your next vacation, however, I encourage you to take a few things into consideration. In this post, I give you my raw and blunt perspective on reopening for tourism (true to my nature), as a current resident in a vacation destination, but also as a former American who would have been ready to hop on the first flight to wherever I might find adventure.

As you read this, please remember that this is my opinion, not necessarily a statement of fact. I felt it important, however, to be authentic and direct, even though it may not be exactly what my audience wants to hear. As always, feedback is welcomed!

To start off, I’d like to ask you to consider this graphic for a moment:

Credit: @hadiyasewer (Instagram)

As I was scrolling through my Instagram feed this morning, I came across this graphic, shared by a fellow Virgin Islands resident, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. To me, this graphic represents a confluence of several different social / human rights issues that are currently circulating discussions on social media - primarily, COVID-19 & the reopening process, as well as the #BlackLivesMatter movement. 

Here is why this graphic - the illustration and its accompanying wording - is so profound and so important within the context of the Virgin Islands and other tourism hubs, particularly those for which the local population consists of predominantly black citizens and other people of color:

We, as white people, have a tendency to place ourselves at the center of every story - it’s part of our white privilege. We’re so used to being the protagonist - indeed it’s the framework through which we’ve been taught for our entire lives (think Christopher Columbus, a completely white/Eurocentric interpretation of history) - that we often place ourselves at the center of a narrative, even when we don’t necessarily mean to or don’t even realize we’re doing it. I’m guilty; we’re all guilty.

Here’s an example: 

White person posting on social media: “I just read an article about Breonna Taylor’s death, and it made me feel so outraged that I couldn’t eat a thing all day.”

Is the message evil in and of itself? No. This white person had a totally natural and justified response to the article she read. She should be outraged. But, who is the protagonist in this story? Is it Breonna Taylor, or is it the white person writing the post? Answer: white person writing the post.

Uncentering ourselves is a difficult thing to do, primarily because, as white people, we’ve never really been asked to do it before. Centering comes naturally, so it’s uncomfortable to shift the focal point of our discussion to somebody else, but we have to try.

One thing I try to do is to give myself what I call “The Protagonist Test;” who is this story really about? If it’s about me, how can I take the narrative I’ve created and remove myself from the lead role?

It’s important to remember that it’s okay to be the center of a story when it is actually about you; it’s not okay to place yourself at the center of a story that should never have been yours to begin with. (Here’s a little trick: if you’re a white person, a story involving the #BlackLivesMatter movement should probably not be centered around you.)

So, why am I talking about this in a post about tourism and reopening in the wake of the COVID pandemic?

… because the notion of “white-centering,” I suppose we’ll call it, is at the heart of the COVID/tourism controversy. 

Take Kevin and me for example: I’m somewhat ashamed to admit this, but had COVID happened a few years ago, prior to us moving here, if Kevin and I were considering a vacation in the Virgin Islands, we probably would have looked up statistics like infection/death rate in the Virgin Islands, and, seeing that the Virgin Islands was one of the safer places to be, we may have booked a trip. We’d rationalize it by saying, “After all, it’s safe there - better than traveling somewhere where we might catch the virus and bring it home with us, potentially infect our families and other community members.” 

What we probably wouldn’t have looked up would be facts like, what percentage of the local population has access to healthcare? What is the ratio of hospital beds to citizens? How many respirators are there? (NOT in case we get sick, but in case we infect the local community.)

Had we looked up these statistics, we would have discovered that 30% of the adult Virgin Islands population is without health insurance (compared to 12% in the United States), and that there are 184 hospital beds for 104,431 people.

The point here: the discussion of whether or not to travel would have been centered around us; we would have been the protagonists in the story, not the local community whose safety we could be compromising.  

See the connection here? In my opinion, this is an extension of the Black Lives Matter conversation; with a tourism base that is predominantly white, and a local population that is 76% black, what matters more, tourists’ vacation plans, or black lives?

So, are we suggesting that nobody travel to the Virgin Islands? 

Not necessarily. Indeed, as a region that relies heavily on tourism, this pandemic has had detrimental effects on the Virgin Islands’ economy, and many of us are struggling to make ends meet. 

What we are encouraging, however, is that all travelers considering a trip to the Virgin Islands (or anywhere, really) make an effort to un-center yourselves from the narrative. Consider the lives and safety of those who have welcomed you into their community; remember, you are a guest. If you can claim that you’re coming here to help boost the economy, then, please, show the same care for our community’s health that you do for our economic well-being. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Maintain safe social distancing practices. Better yet, quarantine yourselves to ensure the safety of those with whom you come in contact. 

As the graphic states, “Is your vacation more important than our lives?”