Trimaran sponsored by "Region Guadeloupe" and representing Guadeloupe in the race, sailed by Claude Thellier. On board are former world record holder Marie Jose Perec from Guadeloupe, and President of the Region, Victorin Lurel.

Everyone believes wholeheartedly that the "Rum 2006" could give a boost to an economy that is having difficulty in finding its cruising speed.

Who still remembers that, on November 29, 1986, the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance (ARC) greeted the arrival of the “Route du Rhum” by real bomb attacks? These 20 attacks committed on Guadelupean national territory were bound to alert the world press, present on the spot to cover the event.

These well targeted attacks against the symbols of French presence in Guadeloupe caused only damage to property. During this period, those in charge of Guadeloupean tourism spread alarmist statements that the “attacks” of the ARC made the tourists stay away.

Later, in the middle of the 90s, when the powerful General Union of Guadelupean Workers (UGTG), a Guadeloupean nationalist trade union, hardened its tone towards bosses little inclined to respect the French law of work, we heard the same tune: “the strikes of UGTG break the economy and chase away the tourists ".

Twenty years later, ARC has stopped its "military actions"; UGTG does not close any more water supplies to hotels or does not block any more gas stations, but nevertheless tourism is always a patient in a long convalescence.

It is therefore necessary to look somewhere else for the causes of the stagnation, even the failure, of Guadeloupean tourist policy.

In its last report in 2005, the official institute measuring the colonial economy in Guadeloupe and other French overseas territories, the so-called Institute of Emission of Dom" (IEDOM), underlined that "Guadeloupe registered a drop in tourist frequency”.

Since the peak of 2000, the number of passengers at Guadeloupe’s international airport -- Pole Caraïbes -- decreased from 2.1 million in 2000 to 1.8 million in 2005, a decline of 13.8 %.

The French colonial economic review adds that "for certain destinations of the Caribbean, such as Cuba or the Dominican Republic, tourism development appreciably intensified during the last decade, as the number of tourists increased there".
 
All this information is confirmed by the activity report of 2005 of the international airport -- Guadeloupe Pole Caraïbes -- which has just been handed to the press.

Last May, the Hotel Workers Trade Union (UTHTR), in other words the hotel sector section of the powerful UGTG, organized its second day of "open doors". The leaders of the nationalist trade union explained to tour operators, elected members of the Region and hotelkeepers, invited, present and very attentive, that "the major problem of Guadeloupean tourism was the quality of the proposed product”.

UTHTR believes, justifiably, that to be distinguished from destinations such as Cuba or the "sun and sea" offered by the Dominican Republic, it would inevitably be necessary to redefine the "Guadeloupe product " by offering a more culturally-focused tourism, where crafts, cooking, history of the country would be enhanced.

This idea of an authentically Guadeloupean tourist product is beginning to gain acceptance.

The General States of the Guadeloupean Tourism, scheduled next September, on the initiative of Victorin Lurel, the president of the Guadeloupe Region, cannot ignore the propositions put forward by the UGTG, which is becoming more and more a credible participant as far as tourism is concerned.

It is interesting to note how this trade union, which has never hidden its independence ambitions for Guadeloupe, is very sharp today when it is about the economy of the country.

The difficulties of the tourist industry in Guadeloupe are real. Everybody here knows that the old-looking hotels are little adapted to the requirements of the French tourist, together with too big a dependence on French tourists, who represent more than 90% of visitors to Guadeloupe.

Only 28% of these tourists, with their berets and rucksacks, stay in hotels and 10% in shelters. They are thus rather "meager" tourists, spending only a little money in Guadeloupe. They prefer to stay with residents (43%) and soon doubtless they will come to Guadeloupe campsites!

It becomes thus urgent to find the other "niches" of clientele from Canada, North America, and the Caribbean. The market research should focus on  these potential "targets".

This 5th “Route du Rhum”, no more than the previous editions, cannot answer at all the true problem posed by Guadeloupean tourism. At the most, this kind of "Paris-Dakar at sea" will focus the attention of the media and sailors on the archipelago of Guadeloupe.

Once the winner is known, Guadeloupe and its problems will sink again into oblivion. In 2010, if nothing is done, we shall still hear "people in charge" betting on "the strong impact " of the latest Route du Rhum.

And the blue sea of the Caribbean islands, which since 1492, the date of the arrival of the first "Route du Rhum" and of a skipper named Christophe Columbus, will take back its lonely soliloquy...