Residential Tourism Up Close: A Review of Paraiso for Sale

Abstract

Residential Tourism Up Close A Review of Paraiso for SaleParaiso for Sale (2012)Anayansi Prado, Director/ProducerImpacto FilmsRunning time: 73 minutesAT A TIME WHEN AMERICAN POLITICIANS are deliberating how best to deal with the issue of undocumented immigrants, Anayansi Prado's award-winning 2012 documentary Paraiso for Sale is a timely reminder that Americans also constitute a problematic immigrant group in some parts of the world. Panamanian by birth and resident in Los Angeles, Prado has looked at immigration in an earlier film, Children in No Man's Land (2009), where she examines the plight of the thousands of unaccompanied minors who attempt to enter the USA through the Mexican border. In Paraiso for Sale, she flips the coin, looking at the impact of the migration of Americans to her native Panama.A revealing and important film for anyone living in a tourist economy and for those interested in the effects of globalisation on the developing world, Paraiso for Sale focuses on the province of Bocas del Toro as it confronts and is transformed by the impact of the rapidly expanding phenomenon of what is known as 'residential tourism' or 'lifestyle migration'. These terms, jargon that tends to mystify rather than elucidate, belie the concrete nature of the phenomenon they describe. Paraiso for Sale, however, very quickly establishes that the central issue on which residential tourism pivots is the ownership and control of land. In the Caribbean, we have perhaps traditionally thought of tourists as short-term visitors, typically arriving for a couple weeks of sea and sun, usually between December and March. As Paraiso for Sale informs us, however, there's a new breed of tourist in town: the residential tourist who comes to visit, buys land, builds a home and then moves in.In her film, Prado shows us that when it is not carefully managed, residential tourism can radically change a community for the worse. Rising property costs, increased demands on inadequate services and infrastructure, land disputes, and unregulated development that threatens to destroy traditional settlements and traditional ways of life are just some of the problems that Paraiso for Sale exposes in Bocas del Toro. The challenges presented by residential tourism are perhaps far more acute in Panama than elsewhere in the region because, the film informs, it is the preferred location for American retirees. A province of Panama, Bocas del Toro is an archipelago off that country's northwestern coast near the border of Costa Rica. Remote and far removed from the bustle and commerce of the capital and the canal, this largely underdeveloped province and its capital town, Bocas, have become one of the more popular destinations for the American residential tourist. The film gives us some alarming statistics: approximately 1,000 expatriates live in Bocas del Toro and they comprise 25 percent of the population; in less than a decade Panama has seen an increase of 136 percent in the immigration of foreign retirees; more than 150,000 American retirees apply for visas for Panama every year. Clyde Stephens, one of the persons interviewed in the film and author oi History of the Province of Bocas del Toro (2008), describes the influx of residential tourists as modern-day colonialism. He states, Now the foreigners essentially control all of these islands, they own all the waterfront property and Panamanians will never be able to come back here.The film's opening segment introduces this paradox, using animation as an ironic counterpoint to the sobering information presented by the voiceovers. First, a soothing male voice, invoking the fantasy of the tropical getaway, invites, How would you like to live in a tropical heaven where every day you wake up to crystal clear waters, blue skies and exotic sounds from the jungle? But another male voice informs us that for many Americans the only way of achieving the dream condo on the beach is to look beyond American shores. …