Going south in the winter once meant Florida. But more and more, the fast-multiplying North American species, the Winter Vacationist, is migrating to the vast scattering of islands in the sun known loosely as the Caribbean.
Every year the migration is heavier, and for obvious reasons: Florida is more crowded than it used to be; the farther south the more certain the weather; and the jet plane has brought the islands within easy reach. The winter vacation, once a plutocrat's privilege, has become a fringe benefit for Everyman, who is discovering that there is nothing quite so soul-satisfying as toasting in the sunshine while one's friends and relations are shivering in the sleet.
The rush has left the islands' hotelkeepers, restaurateurs and developers in a slightly dazed state of euphoria. In 1950 some 32,000 tourists visited Nassau; in 1962 there were 438,000. In the same period, visitors to Jamaica jumped from about 74,000 to 223,000. The Virgin Islands' share rose from 15,000 in 1949 to 300,000 last year, Puerto Rico's from 65,000 to about 500,000. Looking to the future, Caribbean developers note with gratification that the average age of the winterized tourist is decreasing. Only five years ago, most tourists were in the 40-to 60-year-old group and from high-income levels. Both age and income level have been coming down steadily.
Time was when finding a warm place to go to with adequate eating and sleeping accommodations was something of an achievement; it was par for the course if the beach turned out to be ten miles from the nearest hotel and the sand flies seemed insatiable. But today, with the increasing sophistication of the U.S. vacationist and the enterprise of the developers, the Caribbean offers something for everybody. In the bigger centers, new hotels provide the best in air-conditioned comfort and sophisticated food for those who want cocktail-lounge luxury, the dim-lit excitement of a gambling casino, and the best floor shows east of Las Vegas. For those who yearn for nothing more than roughing it in total isolation, there are still remote, palm-fringed beaches. Or the middle-minded may want (and can get) a little of both, with some quaint native life and a steel band thrown in. Today the roster of places to go and the bill of particulars on each is so widely known that anybody can plot in advance whether to sacrifice the snorkeling for the schnapps, the fleshpots for the fishing.
A sampling (see color pages) both of the newly opulent and the still remote West Indian showpieces:
¶ THE BAHAMAS. Grand Bahama Island, 65 miles east of Palm Beach, is attracting more and more of a spillover from the Florida coast with an air-conditioned, many-splendored thing called the Grand Bahama Hotel, where the swimming pool is so large that the lifeguards use a rowboat. Farther south, the so-called Out Islands are becoming more popular with the kind of people for whom Nassau is beginning to seem far too much like a honky-tonk meld of El Morocco, Smalls' Paradise and Fort Lauderdale. Eleuthera has acquired four new hotels, and Harbour Island, a tiny island off Eleuthera's northern tip, has for years attracted socialites from the U.S. as a place for a quiet vacation in the well-managed cluster of cottages called Pink Sands Lodge.