Tourism geopolitics and its implications on island cultures: observations on Subic Bay and Chatan

This article explores militarism and tourism assemblages in Subic Bay, the Philippines; and Chatan town in Okinawa, Japan. The aim is to contribute to detailing concretely how imperialistic desires intersect with industry, and how industry becomes a political tool and a socially acceptable form of occupation.

Tourism is an important developmental strategy in Asia and the Pacific (Vicuña Gonzalez 2013), therefore we need to understand it better as a socio-political phenomenon and help in the development of concepts that will aid in decolonializing and making of it an effective tool for socio-economic development. The methodology used was bibliographical observation of works centered on interactions between militarism and tourism.

The areas of study share: First, colonial rule of more than one invader. Second, both used to -and Okinawa continues to- have important military facilities of the United States armed forces. Third, thse sites have been recanted as tourism hotspots. And fourth, they are located within the same area of interest for the US, Asia Pacific.

The article concludes that both sites became tourism spots due to the presence of three overlapping areas brought by occupation militaries: mobility, sex work, and investment, enabling the replication of unequal relationships. Though an extremely difficult task to fulfill, the article suggests the use of a combination of moderate, intermediate, and radical measures to appropriate the tourism industry and use it for the benefit of anti-imperialism.