Abstract
Drawing on research in Cuba and the Dominican Republic this paper explores the uses of intimacy in both the corporate sector and in romantic relationships. I use research with hotel workers and with people involved in sexual-affective exchanges connected to tourism to link intimacy to the political economic structures of transnational tourism. These are new spaces of analysis that present practices of transnational corporate-generated intimacy that combine love - or the exploitation of worker's emotions − and labor. The central aim is to intertwine the intimate with the global, from the formal customer service policies of transnational hotels with the informal, on-the-ground, intimate encounters between tourists and hospitality workers. The commercialization of intimacy, including sexual-affective relations in the delivery of hospitality services, is linked to political and economic processes that are part of transnational tourism practices. This paper challenges the notion that sex tour- ism and sex work are individualistic practices that exist outside of the spaces of corporate global profit. It further posits that relationships where money is exchanged are not necessarily devoid of care and intimacy. Keywords: intimate labour, sex tourism, hospitality industry, Cuba, Dominican Republic. During recent travel to the Dominican Republic I booked an online trip that in- cluded airfare and lodging. My aim was to get an inexpensive hotel for my stay during a research trip. I chose to book over the internet because the rapid consoli- dation of travel services through online search engines such as Orbitz or Traveloc- ity bundles airfare, car rentals, and lodging, offering some of the most inexpensive deals available to mass travel consumers. This limits consumers to multinational suppliers in accommodations, since the rapid monopolization of travel services is now controlled by only a handful of transnational corporations (ILO 2001, Dun- ning and McQueen 1982). 1
Highlights
Drawing on research in Cuba and the Dominican Republic in this article I analyse the organization of intimate labour in hotels and the sexual-affective encounters that take place between tourists and locals
My research began in the mid-nineties when Cuba was undergoing rapid transformations following the fall of the Soviet Union and the Socialist bloc economies, and the Dominican Republic was reeling from neoliberal reforms that combined the expansion of free-trade zones with tourism development
The development of the North American tourism industry in Cuba during the early part of the twentieth century helped to secure it as a destination for leisure and all kinds of bodily pleasures
Summary
My research began in the mid-nineties when Cuba was undergoing rapid transformations following the fall of the Soviet Union and the Socialist bloc economies, and the Dominican Republic was reeling from neoliberal reforms that combined the expansion of free-trade zones with tourism development. Drawing on research in Cuba and the Dominican Republic in this article I analyse the organization of intimate labour in hotels and the sexual-affective encounters that take place between tourists and locals. By intertwining the intimate with the global, the formal with the informal, new spaces emerge of transnational corporate-generated intimacy that combines love – or the exploitation of affect – within the tourism process.
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