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This chapter discusses the Government of Barbados’s 2014 introduction of partially student paid tuition fees for Barbadians attending the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus. This introduction of a student paid tuition component came after fifty years of state-funded education at the local UWI campus. In this chapter I assert that this introduction of fees altered the existing postcolonial “social contract” that has developed in the country and that has been integral to Barbados being presented as a “model” for small developing states in the Caribbean and beyond. In the chapter I argue that the social contract in the country was altered in light of the alleged demands of financial crisis and that this crisis climate allowed for “decision-making by surprise” in a country in which collaborative education governance has grown to be accepted as the norm.

It is observed that many destinations are implementing sport tourism offerings to enhance their ability to attract visitors through satisfying their desires of new experiences. This has led to a highly competitive sport tourism market and as a result destinations engage in various marketing techniques and promotional tools to gain an advantage. For that reason this research was undertaken to acquire a greater understanding of the importance of promotional tools to successfully and efficiently market sport tourism experiences.

The construct of this study comprises of two stages. The aim of the first stage is to evaluate the specific tools used to promote sport tourism and sport tourism experiences in Barbados by examining the responses of various sporting and tourism bodies. The second stage of this research was conducted to present and analyze how marketing/promotional tools could contribute to better market sport tourism experiences.

The research found that many of the promotional tools implemented in Barbados during their marketing process correspond with those used internationally. However, problems of poor and insufficient sporting facilities as well as little collaboration between tourism and sporting entities, hamper the success of Barbados as a sport tourism destination. This further minimized Barbados’ ability to market favorable tourism experiences. This therefore shows that while promotional tools are essential in attracting tourists, other elements must also be taken into consideration to ensure sport tourists have positive experiences which would lead to a successful sport tourism destination.

Few studies in this area have been undertaken in the Caribbean. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining the implementation of sport tourism offerings to attract visitors to Barbados.

Barbados is at a very advanced stage of population aging. Health care services are designed to ensure universal access for all Barbadians but the contributing factors for older adults’ health care utilization are not well explored. This chapter examines gender differences in the correlates of seeking medical care among older adults in Barbados.

Logistic regression models were applied to data drawn from the 2000 Survey of Health, Well-Being and Aging of Older Adults in Latin America and the Caribbean (SABE), Bridgetown sample (n = 1,068).

Health needs, based on chronic conditions, were positively associated with seeking medical care for men and women. Different forms and directions of intergenerational support were associated with men and women seeking care. Among men, receiving financial support was positively associated with seeking care. Among women, providing financial support was associated with lower odds of seeking care while receiving instrumental support was associated with higher odds of seeking care.

Medical care is only one form of health care use and there is no specification of the nature of care or consultation. The sample is cross-sectional and limited to older adults in urban areas. The relative importance of enabling factors and health needs, especially, may differ across time and space within Barbados.

The study contributes to the literature on health care utilization among older adults within developing countries and highlights the pertinence of family relations influencing gender differences in health care utilization.

The members of the United Nations celebrate 30 years of the adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 2019. This milestone has added significance in a context in which we are about a decade away from fulfilling the targeted goals of the UN 2030 Agenda with its pledge to leave no country or no-one behind. This is an opportune moment to assess the status of children in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Using primary and secondary data, the chapter assesses the status of children after 30 years of the CRC in four Caribbean SIDs; Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti and St Lucia. The focus is on poverty, education, health and climate change related CRC articles and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Data analysis reveals that the vulnerabilities of SIDS impede adherence to Child Rights for large proportions of children who are at risk of being left behind. Climate Change increases their vulnerabilities and disparities persist in access to basic social services. As with the CRC and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the implementation of the SDGs is plagued with a lack of timely and disaggregated data to inform the policy process; inadequate programmatic coordination; insufficient financial support; limited accountability and political will. Cultural perceptions of children and inadequate recognition of the importance of children to any the Developmental Agenda also thwart progress for children in SIDs. Urgent action is needed if we are to fulfil all the commitments that we made to our children since 1989 with the adoption of the CRC.

The purpose of this chapter is to critically evaluate the development of technological infrastructure and the propensity of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) destinations to adopt digitalisation in their hotel sectors. This paper focuses on technological readiness, the types of digitalisation and its influence on the hotel sector in a post-pandemic environment.

The chapter is a critical and conceptual overview of digitalisation in the Latin America and the Caribbean hotel sectors, the contribution of the hotel sector to tourism economies, and digitalisation in LAC post COVID-19. A comprehensive examination of the academic literature is combined with the Network Readiness Index (NRI) and Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) on several LAC countries focusing on different scopes including ICT readiness, ICT environment and business usage from 2010 to 2020. The paper uses empirical data collected from NRI and TTCI on several LAC countries examining changes in development of information and communications technology (ICT) by conducting a longitudinal analysis over a ten-year period.

The chapter argues that digitalisation in the hotel sector has been given a lot of attention regarding the adoption of digitalisation during the pandemic by a continuation of activities involving check-in and check-out, providing safety for guests and staff and the recovery of the hotel sector by both hoteliers and academics. Yet, LAC have been slow when it comes to the development of ICT. This is shown on the NRI and the TTCI by their position on ICT infrastructure, ICT environment and business usage. Nevertheless, while their positions on the indexes are less than favourable, their scores are improving, but at a very slow rate.

Limited academic literature is available on digitalisation in LAC countries. There is no consistent data on the NRI and TTCI year to year for some of the countries examined in this study.

This study provides a comprehensive review of technological infrastructure development of countries of Latin America and Caribbean countries with an emphasis on digitalisation in a hospitality context. The chapter is a critical examination of digitalisation in the hotel sector in a post-pandemic environment.

During the period 1962-2001 (9/11), the author identified 25 terrorist acts in the English-speaking Caribbean. Apart from US action in Grenada in 1983, the extra-regional response to these acts was minimal. However, in the aftermath of 9/11, the US has introduced a number of counter-terrorist measures into the region from Washington through such agencies as Southcom, the FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security, now including the Coast Guard, to forestall future acts of terrorism. Also the UN, the OAS, and the CARICOM, at the instigation of the US, have encouraged Caribbean nations to adopt resolutions and pass anti-terrorist legislation at the local level in the fight against terrorism. US policy toward the region is based on its own self-interest since it considers the Caribbean its “Third Border,” one that is difficult to close to security threats. In all of this, the Caribbean nations welcome the security, more so because of the incidental protection it offers to their fragile tourist-dependent economies that are sensitive to political and other threats. This coincidence of interest has seen the US merge drug-trafficking and terrorism into one consolidated threat. Traditionally, the Caribbean region has not allocated a large part of its budget to security concerns, but with external assistance, particularly from the US, the region's police and military forces have been called upon to adapt to the global threats of the post-9/11 era by strengthening operational capacity, mission readiness, and intensify regional cooperation. This new thrust also includes making border tightening security measures more comprehensive and robust as well as the sharing of information, including intelligence. As long as the US perceives the terrorist threat a priority, Caribbean security policy will continue apace.

Imperialism was, from its commencement, a racially and sexually gendered reality and the power differential among masculinities emerged in the master/slave relationship that characterized Empire. Hegemonic masculinity generated by the white conquistador birthed a resultant subordinate masculine identity that came to signify the non-White man – initially slave and, later, the free African laborer – in the New World. The subjectification of this non-White man, this Other, proved to be fundamental to the constitution of masculinity along racialized and sexualized frames, complementing how related ideologies functioned in a primarily economic enterprise underpinned by greed as the catalyst for the Conquistador’s actions. The impact? Almost indelible gender identity ramifications on the enslaved African and his offspring across the Caribbean diaspora. This chapter seeks to explore Empire-resultant and Empire-resistant constructions of masculine identity in Olive Senior’s “The View from the Terrace” and Paule Marshall’s “Barbados.” The overarching aim is to underscore that, in the postcolonial Caribbean, as the Afro-Saxon’s proclivity for all things White crumbles, the Afro-Creole man’s own emerging, defining and robust sense of self and masculine identity becomes visible.

This chapter examines Pelagic Sargassum seaweed that has been washing up on shores from Mexico to Ghana in record amounts over the last decade. Increase in Sargassum has had a devastating impact on fisheries and tourism including the livelihoods of coastal communities and nearshore ecosystems. This increase has also caused significant health problems due to the exposure of rotting sargassum. Current science informing this increase points to climatic change and ocean eutrophication. Even as the scientific phenomena is studied, there have been numerous management strategies deployed to adapt to heavy seasonal washups, to build resilience in affected sectors and communities and even explore sustainable uses of the seaweed material turned to viable market products. Here, we focus on public management and administration of Sargassum to consider how the micro- and macroimpacts affect our societies including government and private sector responses to seaweed removal and legal, regulatory, and administrative approaches to such “pollution” that highlight process, jurisdictional, and political imperatives. We unpack via the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) lens to raise and uncover several interesting points regarding how we build resilience to environmental change, manage national systems in the face of unclear nature-based phenomena, and approach to equitable sustainable development.

The collapse of the Soviet Union had major ramifications for the small developing countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as 3 of the then 13 countries experimented with strands of socialism, festering political fragmentation/ideological pluralism regionally. As the rivets of the Iron Curtain came unfastened, the emerging markets of CARICOM were forced to rethink their geopolitical positions while reforming their national educational systems. This chapter examines how the dissolution of socialism in the former socialist countries of Southeast/Central Europe and the former Soviet Union created a reform atmosphere across CARICOM countries. CARICOM's response to the impact of 1989 lies in how it spent the 1980s dealing with the 1973–1974 oil crises, ideological pluralism, and the subsequent imposition of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) under the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The successive degeneration of ideological pluralism within CARICOM countries caused by the simultaneous collapse of cooperative socialism in Guyana, revolutionary socialism in Grenada, and democratic socialism in Jamaica paved the way for post-socialist transformations regionally. This chapter considers how the policy process of functional cooperation – the non-economic policy mechanism upon which CARICOM seeks to integrate its members – facilitates the policy tool of lesson-drawing to take place between member states while laying the foundation for post-socialist change across CARICOM. Using data from the educational policies of 10 countries, this chapter illustrates how CARICOM members used the global policy alterations of 1989 as a reference point to reform their educational systems. Educational reforms occurred as member states drew lessons from each other – in the form of cross-national consultations – guided by the policy process of functional cooperation.

In the last two decades, there has been much research and attention on information and communications technologies (ICTs) as tools that can contribute to the economic and social lives of persons with disabilities (PWDs). However, few studies have sought to explore and document the experiences of PWDs who use these technologies to access the democratic space. Using Democratic Governance as a conceptual framework, this qualitative study seeks to address this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of several visually impaired Caribbean youth with the use of ICTs to access the democratic space.

This study uses the qualitative research design and is guided by Husserl’s Descriptive phenomenology. The study sought to explore common patterns elicited from the specific experiences of 14 visually impaired citizens in Jamaica and 9 in Barbados through the use of semi-structured interviews.

The findings suggest that ICTs have in some ways contributed to the lives of these visually disabled youth, specifically as it relates to improving their ‘political knowledge’ and encouraging ‘political talk’. In other words, ICTs have played a contributive role in terms of including visually impaired Caribbean youth in the democratic space.

This study contributes to improving our understanding of how and in what ways ICTs can promote the inclusion of visually impaired persons in the democratic space.