What Becomes of Boquete: Transformation, Tension, and the Consequences Of
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What Becomes of Boquete: Transformation, Tension, and the Consequences of Residential Tourism in Panama A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Erik S. Myers August 2009 © 2009 Erik S. Myers. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled What Becomes of Boquete: Transformation, Tension, and the Consequences of Residential Tourism in Panama by ERIK S. MYERS has been approved for the Department of Geography and the College of Arts and Sciences by Brad D. Jokisch Associate Professor of Geography Benjamin M. Ogles Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT MYERS, ERIK S., M.A., August 2009, Geography Becoming Boquete: Transformation, Tension, and the Consequences of Residential Tourism in Panama (118 pp.) Director of Thesis: Brad D. Jokisch As over 76 million U.S. baby boomers prepare for retirement, Latin American countries are poised to experience increasing numbers of foreign leisure and retirement migrants. Comparatively wealthy ‘residential tourists’ from the U.S. have already transformed parts of Latin America. Meanwhile, national incentive policies, media coverage, and aggressive online marketing continue to attract international residents to an increasing number of destinations. Boquete, Panama has experienced a particularly rapid emergence as a destination, and may exemplify a new model of residential tourism development. Using qualitative data from on-site interviews, this thesis will discuss a range of issues and concerns experienced and articulated by local residents of distinct socioeconomic backgrounds. By incorporating a web-based marketing content analysis, this thesis will also argue that rapid, Internet-propelled development has attracted complex and dynamic international residents. The arrival of these diverse international residents has, in turn, created a wide range of consequences for both the community of Boquete and its individual residents. Approved: _____________________________________________________________ Brad D. Jokisch Associate Professor of Geography 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Brad Jokisch, Norm Moline, and Charles Mahaffey for their encouragement and guidance throughout the formative years of my academic career. Also, special thanks to the McIntyre family of Boquete for their assistance and generosity during the course of this study. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... 4 List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2: IRM, Tourism, and Destination Marketing ..................................................... 16 New Forms of International Mobility ........................................................................... 17 Connecting Tourism, Residential Tourism, and IRM ................................................... 19 Shaping a Destination: Marketing, Promotion, and the Internet .................................. 20 Potential Impacts of IRM and Residential Tourism ..................................................... 23 Commodification, Consumption, and Destination Life Cycle ..................................... 26 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 3: Methods ........................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 4: Boquete’s Emergence ..................................................................................... 39 Growth Projections and Transformation ....................................................................... 41 Boquete as a Tourist Destination .................................................................................. 42 Boquete as an IRM and Residential Tourism Destination ............................................ 44 Boquete as an Investment Destination .......................................................................... 46 Chapter 5: A Hotspot Destination: The Results of Boquete’s Internet-Propelled Growth ........................................................................................................................................... 48 The Case for Fluid Categories Describing Boquete’s International Residents ............ 52 6 Boquete as a Bargain ................................................................................................ 53 …as a Fashionable Paradise ...................................................................................... 55 …as a Financial Opportunity .................................................................................... 56 …as a Hybrid ............................................................................................................ 58 Inter and Intra-Community Tension ............................................................................. 59 Chapter 6: Concerns and Consequences: Understanding Impacts on the Community and Individuals......................................................................................................................... 61 Unintended Consequences: Socio-Economic Concerns and Developing Issues ......... 62 Price Increases........................................................................................................... 63 Competition and Economic Leakage ........................................................................ 68 Local Downward Mobility ........................................................................................ 75 Environmental Concerns and Sustainabilty .................................................................. 78 Quality of Life and Standard of Living ..................................................................... 87 The Atmosphere of Ambivalence ................................................................................. 90 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter 7: Current and Future Boquete: Boom To Bust? .............................................. 99 Boquete and the ‘Global Economic Slowdown’ ......................................................... 100 Sustainability and the ‘Stagnation’ Phase of the TALC ............................................. 104 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 107 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 110 References ....................................................................................................................... 115 7 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Map of Boquete and Chiriquí Province ...........................................................13 Figure 2: A View of Bajo Boquete .................................................................................41 Figure 3: Luxury Homes in Valle Escondido .................................................................47 Figure 4: Virtual Place Imagery and Actual Landscape .................................................51 Figure 5: New Commercial Development in Alto Boquete ............................................67 Figure 6: Construction Worker from Dolega ..................................................................70 Figure 7: Foreign-Owned Real Estate Agency ...............................................................74 Figure 8: A Neighborhood for Displaced Boqueteños ...................................................78 Figure 9: A Residential Tourist Home Set Among Abandoned Agriculture ..................83 Figure 10: A Billboard Warning of Boquete’s Fate ........................................................87 Figure 11: Overtaxed and Deteriorating Infrastructure ..................................................94 Figure 12: An Abandoned, Partially-Completed Housing Development .....................103 8 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The majority of migration studies focus on the large-scale international migration from nations in the ‘Global South’ to the ‘Global North.’ However, a lesser- known migration from the wealthy nations of the ‘Global North’ to the ‘Global South’ is currently gaining momentum. An increasing number of citizens from the United States and Europe are choosing to spend their retirement years in less-expensive tropical countries in Latin America. A similar pattern of migration is well-established in Mediterranean Europe (King et al., 1998; 2000; Warnes and Williams, 2006; Gustafson, 2008), although European retirement migrants tend to remain within the economic and political community of the European Union. In contrast, retirees from North America are now residing in Latin American destinations where income gaps between foreign retirees and native residents are substantial. International Retirement Migration (IRM) and associated forms of leisure migration from the global north to the global south are not yet large-scale phenomena. Less than one quarter of one percent of retirees make