How the all-inclusive came to exist, and how the places you book got built.
3 entries
In 1969 the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic had no road, no hotel and no airport, and the place was called Drunkard's Point. Fifty years later it is the busiest airport in the country and one of the largest concentrations of all-inclusive rooms on earth. Almost none of that happened in the usual order.
Mexico wanted a Caribbean resort, so a bank ran ten thousand kilometres of its own coastline through a model and let the numbers choose. Then nobody would build the hotels, so the government built them itself. Fifty years on it is one of the largest resort coasts on earth.
Barceló started with a bus. Iberostar made shoes. RIU had eighty beds, Meliá had a lease and a 21-year-old. Four of the companies that run the Caribbean came off the same Mediterranean island within one generation, and that was not a coincidence.
