06/15/97 - 07:45 PM ET - Click reload often for latest version
ROSEAU, Dominica - ``There's an old Caribbean joke: If Columbus came back today, Dominica is the only island he would recognize,'' says local hotel owner and dive operator Derek Perryman.
Until recently, Perryman adds, the Columbus quip served to emphasize the backwater aura of this former French and British colony. More than 500 years after the explorer discovered its existence, the little-known island is so often confused with the Dominican Republic that overseas mail is routinely misdirected to Santo Domingo.
Now, the jab is becoming a sales tool - and a rallying cry among environmentalists hoping to insulate the rugged outpost from its neighbors' commercialism.
Home to endangered parrots, gurgling mud pots and a river for every day of the year, 29-mile-long Dominica (pronounced Dah-min-EE-ka) has been both blessed and cursed by its geography.
About 75% of the lush island is cloaked in mountains, which attract so much rain (up to 300 inches a year) that water is an export.
Beaches are paltry, and the same precipitous terrain that sheltered the region's indigenous Carib Indians from 18th century European invaders has kept modern development in check. Roads are tortuously winding, and the island's two small airports handle only daytime flights. The biggest hotel has fewer than 40 rooms; just 720 rooms are on the entire island.
But faced with the elimination of preferential European access for its banana crop, the self-styled ``Nature Island of the Caribbean'' is turning to tourism for economic salvation. And while the country remains a haven for hikers, bird-watchers and scuba divers, Dominica's visitor industry is expanding beyond its low-key, ecotourism roots.
Almost 200,000 travelers arrived here by cruise ship last year, a whopping 42% increase since 1995. The country opened its first U.S. tourism office last December and recorded 13,500 American visitors in 1996, a boost of almost 25% over 1995.
Effective in June 1997, nonresidents must pay entry fees at two of the island's most popular destinations: 200-foot-high Trafalgar Falls and the Emerald Pool, a fern-lined, waterfall-fed grotto that could double as a Tarzan set. The new fees will help pay for toilet facilities, interpretive centers, walkways and other improvements.
An expansion project at the island's larger airport could accommodate jet landings by 1999, and the tourism industry hopes to add about 3,000 hotel rooms over the next decade, including a riverside resort and spa to be operated by upscale Aman Resorts.
For now, the country's most exotic attraction - a flooded, Dante-esque fumarole called Boiling Lake - remains the exclusive province of hikers with strong lungs and sturdy boots. But there are rumors a developer wants to build a cable car that would let out-of-shape visitors skip the three- to four-hour trek.
Those changes concern repeat visitors like John Lennox.
``Dominica is on the horns of a dilemma: This place is still relatively pristine, but my worry is that the government will be hellbent on quick fixes,'' says Lennox, a microbiology professor from Altoona, Pa., who explored the island for two weeks this spring.
And they trouble locals like Perryman, who runs dive trips and boat excursions aimed at the sperm and humpback whales that congregate in Dominica's waters.
The boom in cruise ship visitors ``is good for me, but it's not good for the island,'' Perryman says. ``The type of person who comes to Dominica doesn't want to go to Trafalgar Falls and be with 200 other people. I don't think mass tourism and ecotourism can mix.''
Perryman's theory was put to the test one recent Thursday afternoon. The Trafalgar Falls parking lot was jammed with minivans, and cruise ship passengers had to walk a gauntlet of persistent tour guides before elbowing their way onto a wooden viewing platform.
Dominica's tourism leaders acknowledge the country's balancing act as it reaches for a wider market while preserving its unique natural attributes.
``We're a young nation at a critical stage in our economic development,'' and the banana crisis ``increases the danger of not doing it right,'' says minister of tourism Norris Prevost.
More than a quarter of Dominica is already protected as national park or forest reserve, and the 17,000-acre Morne Trois Pitons National Park has been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Officials hope to reduce the concentration of cruise ship visitors at Trafalgar Falls and the Emerald Pool by improving access to additional sites, and they plan a training and licensing program for tour guides by year's end.
Also on the agenda: construction of a traditional model village in the windswept Carib Territory. The 3,700-acre preserve is home to about 3,000 Carib Indians, the last remnants of a civilization that once ruled the entire region.
Charles Williams is one of them. As owner of the Carib Territory Guest House, Williams has been a beneficiary of the island's nascent tourism business. He's expanding his modest home from four guest rooms to 15 and, like many of his neighbors, sells distinctive baskets made from straw that derives its color from being buried in Dominica's rich volcanic soil.
``This is an island for people who love nature,'' Williams says, ``and we can preserve that.''
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY
