A Review of Whale-Watching and Whaling with Applications for the Caribbean

Whale-watching is a significant and growing tourism industry worldwide. Whaling has a long history and, although largely curtailed today, still occurs in a few coun-tries around the world and in the Caribbean. Whaling has been labeled an incom-patible activity with whale-watching because, in some cases, it reduces the number of whales available for use and changes whale behavior. Moreover, in some situa-tions, whale-watching generates greater revenue than whaling, and whaling may detrimentally affect the larger tourism industry because of negative attitudes toward whaling by whale-watchers, other tourists, and host communities. This article exam-ines the potential impacts of whaling on the whale-watching and tourism industries, and places these impacts in the Caribbean context. In doing so, the article outlines the history and current status of whale-watching in the Caribbean, outlines other potential constraints, and highlights the need for research about the impacts and roles of these industries. In the highly competitive global tourism industry, maintain-ing and nurturing a country’s tourism image is critically important.