Bonjour blanc, a journey through Haiti: An allegory of the tourism industry in Haiti.

Bonjour blanc, a journey through Haiti (Thomson, 2004) is considered by many as the best written book about Haiti. Not many academic papers have been written about Haiti as a destination. This article therefore contributes to the body of meta-literature. Starting with a brief presentation of Ian Thomson and his novel, this article adopts a thematic approach, successively presenting Ian Thomson’s journey both in terms of time and space. The aim of the paper is to explore and analyse how Ian Thomson’s journeys can be read and interpreted within an academic context. Methodologically, this article builds on the academic critical literature on Haiti as well as on the websites dedicated to the destination. As primary sources, it directly uses Bonjour blanc, a journey through Haiti itself. As the travel writing focuses among other things on the hotels Ian Thomson stayed in, the places he visited, his relationship with the locals and the image of Haiti, it is therefore particularly relevant for an analysis in terms of travel and tourism. Thus what is of interest in the paper is the relationship between hosts and visitors. This paper is therefore going to analyse the tourism sector in Haiti from an ethnological angle.From the analysis, Haiti, once the ‘Pearl of the Caribbean’ was found to be a tourist destination with a tremendous potential crippled by political, social and economic turmoil. The results have implications on the current marketing strategy adopted by the current government and Ministry of Tourism.