Globalization has a significant impact on workers in developing countries. Globalization manipulates a worker’s quality of life and standard of living positively and negatively. Tourism is a fast growing industry in Latin American countries, and it is currently helping the lives of hotel workers, especially in Cuba. Rural Cubans leave the countryside every year in search of a better quality of life in the larger cities such as Havana, Cuba. Quality of life and standard of living positively impact hotel workers but to critically evaluate quality of life and standard of living, these terms need understanding and definitions. In the article “Comparing Standards of Living in the Global Economy,” standard of living is decided by the salary a worker makes, how much a worker can buy with a salary, and by different ways to add on to a salary. The article also states that quality of life is a more general concept referring to government and communication quality, and the quality of values within a nation (1). Although some aspects of tourism can be considered harmful to Cuban hotel workers, the tourism industry has an overall advantageous impact on hotel workers’ standard of living in terms of income in Cuba because tourism can potentially create more and better job positions and education opportunities in hotels.
Cuba’s tourism industry greatly helps many hotel workers improve their quality of life because with the many jobs, many Cuban hotel workers have the opportunity to get the education and income they need. Philip Peters, Vice President at Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia (a libertarian, free market oriented policy institute), declares that as the tourism sector expands in Cuba, there will be an increase in the number of hotels and in the wages of hotel workers because the work place is giving workers valuable education in areas of customer service to satisfy developed country visitors (10). Peters makes an imperative point because there is a cause and effect relationship between education and income. The greater amount of education a hotel worker has the more income a hotel worker receives. So, the increase of jobs in Cuban hotels means that more Cubans are applying to become hotel employees where they receive precious teaching. The education from working at a hotel directly leads to better wages and to better job positions within the hotel.
Stephen Wilkinson, director of the center for Caribbean and Latin America Research and Consultancy at the London Metropolitan University, emphasizes that tourism has an affirmative influence on hotel workers’ incomes because the tourism sector supplies jobs and income to other Cuban sectors like the tobacco industry (987). Wilkinson’s findings are crucial because of the impact tourism has on Cuban hotel workers. When the tourism industry is on the decline, the need for unqualified hotel workers goes down. When the demand for untrained hotel workers goes down, the demand for highly skilled employees in the hotel increases because the tourism industry is rapidly emerging, and the sector cannot afford to slow down. Thus, the employment in hotels stays stable when the tourism industry declines, but the quality of hotel workers improves immensely because the employees are better qualified. Better qualification and education directly causes better income, and it is a direct cause of attracting more visitors.
The poorly educated losing income is not a negative impact because while the tourism industry is declining, other industries around it are growing. Hotel management cannot afford to keep the poorly educated for long time periods. Therefore, some employees might start to lose their pay. For example, Wilkinson explains that the tobacco industry grows with the tourism industry because tobacco sells to incoming visitors, and the tobacco boosts the Cuban economy and profits attracting sponsors from the developed world (987). Therefore, Cuba’s economic sectors can be of assistance to hotel workers’ wages when more money from attentive advanced countries is being brought into Cuba. Hotel workers can find another job in another industry to supplement the income they already have because with the quick pace in tourism, there is always a high demand for jobs in other parts of Cuba’s economy for the trained or untrained.
The role of tourism in Cuba constructively develops the quality of life of hotel workers because a larger income positively affects the daily lives of the workers, and tourism affects how much and what the workers can buy with a larger income. Selim Elekdag and Subir Lall, researchers at the International Monetary Fund Research Department, confirm that less advanced areas provide commodities to its citizens for inexpensive prices, and the monetary value in these areas is larger in terms of buying control compared to more advanced areas. Normal GDP (Gross Domestic Product) values deform the well being of a poorer region, but Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) accurately reflects what is going on inside developing areas and how developing areas are supplying globally (Elekdag and Lall). Purchasing power shows the affect of an industry on hotel workers because hotel workers in the tourism industry receive better incomes. Hotel workers receive better incomes because they have high skills for a high demand job. As a result, the workers can buy more goods in the market with their improving incomes and still have an adequate amount left to live at ease. It is central to realize what the workers can buy. When the hotel workers have better incomes, they have greater access to necessities. Thus, the workers find it easier to buy essentials like water, food, and clothing.
The uneducated are directly affected by the tourism industry because there are many important positions connected to working at a hotel that provide training and income. Most of the hotel positions are for the experienced, but the hotels supply job positions that pay adequately to the unskillful like taxi drivers and room service. Not every Cuban hotel worker has to be a manager to be affected by tourism. All hotel workers have to start at the bottom to get to the top. Elekdag and Lall report that PPP helps accurately determine the significance of tourism on wages for all positions within the hotel (Elekdag and Lall). Without the developing tourism sector, a hotel worker’s standard of living diminishes because the worker’s income deteriorates which leads to a smaller purchasing power and a smaller access to necessities. The ability to attain supplies like food is an important factor for shaping a worker’s quality of life because hotel workers have a greater purchasing power when they receive higher incomes.
Wilkinson argues that the tourism industry has encouraging impacts on hotel workers, but admits the industry has its flaws that can hurt workers’ incomes (980). Deane Neubauer, professor of Sociology at Yale University, claims that rural workers move to urban centers to find work thinking they are going to be successful and acquire wealth. When the rural workers arrive to the big cities, they find themselves living in poor, overpopulated situations. The large number of workers in cities leaves a shortage of labor and income in rural sectors (Neubauer). The migration of workers to major cities is a pattern that is happening in Cuba, and it can turn into a problem because if enough Cubans travel to urban areas to work in the tourism industry at hotels to avoid poverty, rural sectors like the sugar industry are going to lose labor and income. When the tourism industry starts to decline, there will be a surplus of hotel workers. So, the massive amount of hotel employees will be without pay which gives them a smaller income and purchasing power. The swift growth of tourism can be a curse for Cuba because the supply of workers might exceed the demand for hotel employees. Then, the shortage of labor in rural industries harmfully affects the workers in Cuba because some workers leave behind family and lifestyles in rural environments to be able to make enough money at hotels to buy rations.
Wilkinson claims that the tourism industry saves the structure of Cuba because tourism expands Cuba into a capitalist country, and he asserts the values of capitalism can be beneficial to hotel workers’ incomes. Socialist Cuban officials are being compelled to use the tourism industry as a way of opening up the economy to the rest of the world and to increase Cuba’s income to benefit its citizens. By opening up Cuba’s market, the socialist leaders of Cuba are using their supremacy of the market through capitalistic ideas (979-980). The results from Wilkinson’s article are fundamental to knowing the influence the swift pace of tourism is having on employees’ wages because Cuba has one of the fastest growing economies in the Caribbean that is intensifying. With the opening of Cuba’s market to advanced countries, Cuba is improving employment, income, and education in the tourism industry for employees in hotels.
Wilkinson reasons that tourism has its negatives, but argues it saves Cuba’s market from the failure and fall of communist values and communist Russia. There are arguments that tourism produces greater income inequalities, but the hotel workers agree that if democratic organization helps their incomes, hotel workers are for capitalistic values that help connect Cuba with other regions (981). Capitalism is a central point because the past failure of communism has left the door wide open for the tourism industry to adopt capitalistic values to help Cuba recover its industries and to help Cuba globalize and catch up with developed nations which has an immediate impact on wages and education of hotel workers. It is essential to recognize that tourists coming from developed countries save Cuba’s political system by expanding Cuba’s currency and industries to overseas sponsors. These sponsors assist hotel workers drastically.
There are two important sides of tourism on a developing country’s standard of living, but in Cuba, the pros outweigh the cons for the incomes and education of hotel workers. It is reasonable to see the industry as harmful because it leaves a scarcity of workers in rural industries, and tourism has an unpredictable future on wages. It is vital to assert that tourism is gainful to the hotel workers’ income and education. Tourism attempts to open up Cuba’s doors to the rest of the world and to globalize this emergent country in order to make this nation a successful, advanced country filled with educated hotel workers that have a lot to contribute to Cuba and the world.
Works Cited
“Comparing Standards of Living in the Global Economy” Student Reading 1.2, n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2009.
Lall, Subir and Elekdag, Selim. “Global Growth Estimates Trimmed After PPP Revisions.” International Monetary Fund, 2008. Web. 21 Oct. 2009.
Neubauer, Deane. “Mixed Blessings of the Megacities.” Yale Global, 2004. Web. 9 Oct. 2009.
Peters, Philip. “International Tourism The New Engine of the Cuban Economy.” (2002):1-16. Google Scholar. Web. 21 Oct. 2009.
Wilkinson, Stephen. “Cuba’s Tourism ‘Boom’: a curse or a blessing?” Third World Quarterly (2008): 979-993. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Oct. 2009.
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