The Continuum of Beach Enclosure: Socioeconomic Implications for Coastal Communities in the Dominican Republic

Unprecedented proliferation in tourism and coastal development in the Dominican Republic (DR) has transformed the shoreline into a site of conflict as the public and traditional users lose access to the shore. This case study research, based on ethnography and interview data, explores the processes leading to beach privatization and how the Continuum of Beach Enclosure (CBE) affects the socioeconomic structure of local communities and entrepreneurs. Global trends in enclosure of the common are combined with Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model to highlight coastal development in the context of DR. The study concludes that different forms of capital (social, economic, or political) are predominant at various stages of development to generate enclosed spaces with an array of community impacts at each stage.

The people of the Dominican Republic (DR) have a constitutional right to access the ocean shoreline (Dominican Republic Const. art. XV) and the shoreline provides an important setting for many aspects of community life. The Dominican shore often functions as a commons for socializing, subsistence, and other economic activity (Cabezas, 2008). However, increases in tourism and coastal development can often lead to conflicts over shoreline access between traditional users of the coastline and the newcomers. In the last six years, tourism has expanded rapidly with an annual growth of four percent per year globally and at a rate exceeding seven percent in the Caribbean (World Tourism Organization, 2016). Caribbean Tourism Organization (2015) data places the Dominican Republic as the number one destination in the region with over 5.14 million tourist visits in 2014. This fast growth in tourism has transformed much of the coastline into a site for private development and, hence, a site for conflict as members of the public lose access to the shore. News coverage demonstrates that this is a global phenomenon with, for example, reported cases in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Lebanon, and the DR, where private enterprises have either attempted or succeeded at obtaining exclusive private rights to the shoreline Melvin Alvarez (alvarez.melvin11@gmail.com) is completing a MA in Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island, USA. He holds a dual BA in Environmental Studies and Spanish Literature from Skidmore College, New York, USA. Melvin is of Honduran descent and maintains an interest in studying the community perspective on development in the Global South. despite objections from local communities (di Gianfrancesco, 2014;Hadjimichael, 2014; Reclaim the Sea, 2014a; Reclaim the Sea, 2014b; Molina, 2006). Scientific literature has also emphasized the growing trend of privatization (also known as enclosure) and dispossession of common space in rural areas, cities, and beaches (Borras, Franco, Gómez, Kay, & Spoor, 2017;Brown, 2006;Keul, 2015;Sevilla-Buitrago, 2015;Syafriny, 2015;Van Noorloos, 2011).
Coastal privatization and development in the DR is occurring at an unprecedented rate (León, 2007), expanding to many new regions of the country and threatening to alter many Dominicans' way of life and the public's relationship to the shoreline (Skoczen, 2008). Studies regarding privatization and tourism development in the DR typically focus on large projects with substantial influxes of foreign capital and complete or near-complete enclosure (e.g., Pardilla Pino & Navarro Barber, 2014;Sasidharan & Hall, 2012;Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005), despite the fact that the privatization of public space occurs at many scales (from small owner/operators to large international destinations) and along a continuum from weak to absolute enclosure (Sevilla-Buitrago, 2015). This Continuum of Beach Enclosure (CBE) refers to the notion that, despite the law, beaches along the Dominican shoreline all fall somewhere along a continuum from completely open to the public to completely closed, e.g., completely controlled by the private tourism enterprise. Because moments where open access beaches are potentially converting to closed access create a sudden increase in grievances and often organized opposition (Keul, 2015;Van Noorloos, 2011), attention to this type of conflict should not be surprising.
Nonetheless, this focus provides only a partial understanding because it fails to capture the different levels of beach enclosure and the implication for coastal communities at each stage. In the presented case study, researchers aim to provide an insight into the CBE and its different stages.

Overview of Tourism in the Dominican Republic
Despite being among the late Caribbean countries to join the tourism industry, the DR has surpassed many competitors (e.g., Cuba and Bahamas) and solidified itself as one of the top destinations in the region (Duffy, Stone, & Chancellor, 2016;World Tourism Organization, 2016). Prior to 1967 the tourism industry in the country was almost non-existent (Freitag, 1996). In 1967 the Dominican government created the Ministry of Tourism to promote and manage the development of a tourism industry (Freitag, 1996). In 1971 the Dominican government introduced the "Tourism Incentive Law" offering tax breaks and a variety of incentives for private investors in tourism (Freitag, 1996, p. 231).
Through a series of presidential decrees in the 1970s, five designated tourism zones were established, including Samaná (Freitag, 1996;Leon, 2004). To finance and support the development of essential infrastructure in the country's designated tourism zones, the Dominican government created an organization called INFRATUR (El Desarrollo de la Infraestructura Turistica) (Freitag, 1996;Leon, 2004). The public and mostly foreign private investment in tourism received strong political support in the early years of pro-tourism reforms from the Dominican government that created new agencies and tax break in favor of the industry.
By the late 1980s, tourism had become a well-established and fastgrowing industry in the DR. In 1983, the country had only 4,000 hotel rooms, but in 1995 the number of rooms exceeded 28,000 (Freitag, 1996). By 2002, hotel capacity in the country had grown to 55,000 rooms (León, 2007) and by 2011 there were 66,790 hotel rooms (Duffy et al., 2016). The rapid growth in hotel capacity in the last three decades corresponds with the steady growth of international tourist arrivals. World Bank data shows an average nine percent annual growth in tourist arrivals in the DR between 1993 and 2002 (Duffy et al., 2016). This data also reveals an increase from 3,282,000 visits in 2003 to 4,125,000 visits in 2010 (Duffy et al., 2016) and 5,141,377 visitors in 2014(Caribbean Tourism Organization, 2015 The success of the tourism industry has propelled the DR into an upper-middle-income country and transformed the island nation into one of the largest economies in the Caribbean ( Duffy et al., 2016;Caffrey et al., 2013 Mitchell, 2009). Duffy et al. (2016) argue that structural adjustment policies undertaken by the government forced the DR to put its economy, politics, and citizens at the mercy of foreignowned, large-scale tourism development. The researchers assert: As a condition to secure international loans from agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the DR was required to open its borders to international trading, lifting trade barriers and governmental controls, and implementing new economic policies that encouraged further globalization (Duffy et al., 2016, p. 3).
While this approach has created a strong tourism industry, the nature of this industry is mass resort tourism, which despite generating significant economic leakage to foreign investors, produces substantial taxable income for the national government (Freitag, 1996;Mitchell, 2009;Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005). As the national government and elites enjoy the economic benefits of tourism, regionally many communities embracing tourism are still waiting the promised benefits from the industry (Freitag, 1996;Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005). The approach to tourism development in favor of national and foreign income generation has resulted in a sizable unequal distribution of wealth, as well as entire communities marginalized by the current methods of resort tourism development in the DR (Caffrey et al., 2013;Freitag, 1996;León, 2007;Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005;Sasidharan & Hall, 2012). Other studies have underlined issues of inflation, environmental destruction, lost of community, increase in crime, drugs, prostitution, and other social issues. Freitag (1994;1996) studies of resort development in the northeastern region of the DR showed substantial negative impacts from international tourism development, including environmental degradation, lost of community homogeneity, and commodity inflation. A USDA (2012) report's assessment of Samaná concluded that the peninsula is unable to provide sufficient infrastructure for trash and wastewater management. These issues observed by USDA in Samaná are also shared with all other regions in the DR also struggling to manage wastewater (Phillips, Russell, & Turner, 2007). Cabezas's (2008) study addresses the issues of increasing violence, drugs, prostitution, and exclusion and marginalization of a vast portion of the labor force as a result of tourism expansion. Cabeza (2008) referenced the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report for the DR demonstrating that salary for tourism workers are below the national average. Samaná is among these regions awaiting the promised benefits of tourism. Governmental efforts to transform Samaná into a tourism hub started decades ago (Freitag, 1996). However, the region's tourism industry only start gaining traction and grow by the late 1990s (Leon, 2004). In Samaná, coastal communities are experiencing different levels of development with some areas transforming into seaside European-style villages and others like Rincon at early stages of tourism expansion (Ripton, 2013;Skoczen, 2008;USAID, 2012).
Because people's relationship to the shore, their social and economic life changes at different developmental and privatization levels, this study examines the implications of such development along the CBE. The least developed Playa Rincon is contrasted with Playa Grande in a case study to illustrate the progressive nature of coastal enclosure and its effects on communities.

STUDY METHODS
The reported global occurrence of privatization of common space has immediate consequences on people dependent on these commons areas. Sevilla-Buitrago's (2015) analysis of the history of privatization of the public commons to create private, capitalistic ventures helps explain the processes behind the phenomenon where common shorelines are succumbing to the penetration of capital and turning into private business areas. Sevilla-Buitrago (2015) argues that enclosure through capital has become the main mechanism to standardize common spaces through the assistance of national governments in less developed countries. Building on this work, the main research question in this study asked: what are the processes leading to beach privatization and what are the socioeconomic implications for the community at different stages on the continuum of enclosure? This study hypothesized that (1) the primary functions of the beach are for subsistence, recreation, and economic activity; (2) while initial small-scale enclosure requires only minimal financial capital, such enclosure demands substantial social capital; (3) and as enclosure increasing in size and exclusivity it requires considerably more financial capital, and social capital is increasingly replaced by political capital.
The CBE provides a useful model of beach access and enclosure that is well suited to understand the Dominican coast and effects of privatization on communities. Rather than thinking of the shoreline as either completely closed to the public or completely private, these extreme positions can be thought of as end points of a continuum. In between either end, a mixture of private and public shoreline exists with people enclosing parts of the beach for different time periods and various purposes at eight different stages of the continuum ( Figure  1). For example, at stage two of the CBE the shore is used for artisan fishing boat storage, while in the last two stages local activities and enterprises compete with international resort compex intensifying enclosure (Figure 1). Since the socioeconomic structure of coastal residents is affected at different stages of the CBE, attention to this gradual phenomenon is well overdue. Butler's (1980) Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model is used complementary to the observed effects of the CBE on Dominican coastal communities. Jointly, these two models illustrate the developmental trajectory of beaches from isolated spaces to crowded and fully developed areas. The six stages of the TALC model continues to be a useful framework for the description and interpretation of the evolution of tourism areas (Butler, 1980(Butler, , 2011Hovinen, 2002;Tooman, 1997). The model utilizes the concept of the product lifecycle and through a basic S-curve graph describes the destination life cycle of an area in the consecutive stages of: exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, and either rejuvenation or decline (Butler, 1980).

Study Area: Samaná, Dominican Republic.
This research took place in two coastal communities in the DR: Rincon and Las Galeras ( Figure 2). The DR is a Caribbean nation occupying two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola (Heredia, 2009). The World Bank classifies the DR as an upper-middle-income country, however, over 40 percent of the 10 million Dominicans on the island live at or below the poverty line (Caffrey, Kindberg, Stone, Torres, & Meier, 2013). Poverty is more concentrated in rural areas, such as the coastal communities in the studied sites (USAID, 2013).
In Las Galeras, the study took place along Playa Grande beach, which has numerous small-scale economic activity. The east end of Playa Grande contains an all-inclusive resort hotel and spread around town are nine other small hotels or villas (USAID, 2012). The town of Rincon is located west from Las Galeras. Its town beach, Playa Rincon, contains some small-scale economic activity and fishing. Playa Rincon is primarily a daytrip destination, as there are no hotels installations along the coast.
Enterprises on Playa Grande and Playa Rincon are spread out over different sections of the beach, sections that are often controlled by an entrepreneur or group of entrepreneurs on the shore (Figure 2). Although there are many restaurants, bars, shops, and street vendors in town, this study only focuses on economic activity occurring along the beach as it is more relevant to beach access issues. To enhance their network and strengthen their territorial control over a particular part of the beach, enterprises are organized into "asociaciones" or labor unions ( Figure 2). Although other studies have described and translated the term asociaciones as labor unions to explain the organization of enterprises into organized groups, the phenomenon would be better interpreted as guilds or cooperatives since these asociaciones often exercise considerable power over the shore. Studies in the DR have documented the use of asociaciones to compete against hotel chains, exert control over the shore, impose restrictions on entrepreneurial operations, and mediate conflicts (Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005;Skoczen, 2008).

Data Collection
Qualitative data was collected in the low tourism season, from June through August 2016. This study utilized a qualitative research approach because of the exploratory nature of the study and the need to provide insight into the reality of a certain group of people (entrepreneurs and their community) within their everyday settings. Ethnography was utilized to obtain a rudimentary understanding of coastal users. Ethnography has been proven essential in other regional studies under similar geographical, cultural, and development levels (García-Quijano, 2009;Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005;Skoczen, 2008). During and immediately after each ethnographic observation or conversation, notes were taken recording the type of social and economic activities observed along the shore, as well as information provided by individuals.
In-depth, semi-structured interviews with coastal users proceeded ethnographic data collection. The interview questionnaire followed a funnel model design, which entails a set of open ended and generic questions, which become more focused as the interview progresses-thus, avoiding leading participants in a particular way early in the process (see Runeson & Höst, 2009). The questionnaire covered three main topics: the role of the beach for individuals, changes in beach use, and conducting economic activity on the shore. In addition to ethnography, a pilot project implementation at a nearby community with similar attributes and daytrip tourism helped pre-screen, improve, and tailor the interview questionnaire to be more region-specific.

Figure 2. Businesses and Asociaciones on Playa Rincon and Playa Grande Samaná, Dominican Republic
Interviews with 48 stakeholders were conducted (see Table 1). To guarantee anonymity of interviewees, pseudonyms are used in the writing process. Among the interviewed key informants are 20 entrepreneurs working along the shore, three elected officials, and four community leaders. Key informants are well-connected and informed community experts (Johnson, 1990). Ethnographic research served to identify initial key informants. Snowball sampling technique was subsequently used to identify more key informants until a point of saturation was reached (Bernard, 2011;Johnson, 1990).

Table 1. List of Interviewed Participants
Interviewees (n=48) Playa Grande Playa Rincon Key Informants (n=27) To sample all other coastal users, a systematic random sampling technique was employed (Bernard, 2011). Intercepts were conducted along the beach and every third person encountered along a transection line was asked to participate in the study.
When a group was encountered, every second individual to the left of the researcher was asked to participate. Almost all interviews with Spanish or English speakers were audio recorded.

Data Analysis
Ethnographic data produced extensive notes and were read multiple times.
Annotations of recurring observations and themes were made. Bernard (2011) indicates that for preliminary analysis of field notes low-tech methods, such as ocular scan and intraocular percussion test, are ideal.
All interviews were transcribed and a thematic analysis and synthesis of patterns followed (Bernard, 2011) using the NVivo qualitative coding software. Identification and categorization of themes found in transcribed lines and paragraphs were then peerreviewed to ensure balanced and definitive themes. These themes were first coded into large categories or primary nodes that aimed to capture all major emergent themes.
Examples of the main primary nodes are "Enclosure," "Beach Use," and "Government." These broad categories subsequently established secondary and tertiary nodes, under the primary node categories. For instance, the node "Enclosure" was further divided into "First-in-time," which was further specified into a tertiary node designated "Associations." The number of times participants mentioned specific nodes were counted and individual attention to the descriptions of these nodes was also considered.

Ethnographic Description of the CBE
On Playa Rincon, the shoreline is mostly free of permanent constructions or semi-permanent beach equipment. The shore can be accessed via boats from nearby communities or through a dirt road running uninterrupted along the beach. At the beach west end, there is a small, open-air and crudely constructed, community restaurant that is operated and shared among 14 local cooks. They are organized into an asociacion, which also includes a handicraft stand, small boat tour operator and kayak rentals, a low density of beach chairs rental, a table under a tree selling coconut drinks, and coconut bake goods vendors walking along the beach ( Figure 2). Visitors to west Playa Rincon tend to be mainly national and independent international tourists. A small, old wooden Enterprises on the east side attract large groups from Punta Cana, occupy a larger area per enterprise setting the area slightly up on the CBE. However, at this fifth stage on the continuum, obstruction of beach access and negative effects on the local community is relatively small, though visible by the increasing segmentation of east and west Rincon.
According to the TALC model, the empty middle section of Playa Rincon is in its exploration stage: an area of limited and sporadic visitation by adventuresome tourists (Butler, 1980;Douglas, 1997). This initial stage of the TALC provides minor social and economic impacts, despite a high degree of contact with locals (Butler, 1980). While west Playa Rincon maintains some characteristics of the exploration stage, this side more appropriately fits the description of the involvement stage. The second stage of the TALC is defined by increasing visitation and the presence of some tourist services provided by locals (Butler, 1980). At this stage, contact between visitors and local inhabitants is high and increases for those local providing services (Butler, 1980). East Playa Rincon resembles some of the characteristics of the stage of involvement, but also a slightly early development stage. The development stage is characterized by investment on more elaborate, up-to-date facilities catering mainly for tourists (Butler, 1980). Local facilities unable to provide a more modern, aesthetically-pleasing environment disappear and organizations outside the tourists destination become more predominant (Butler, 1980 (Skoczen, 2008). Even though the Dominican Constitution guarantees access to the shore, an armed guard stands at either end securing the resort beach entrance. The hotel provides a bar and restaurant for its clients, as well as kayak, snorkeling, beach chairs, and sailboat rentals. There is also an air-conditioned hotel-run gift shop and a hotel-affiliated, somewhat independent, scuba diving center and daylong tour operator on the beach in front of the hotel providing the same trip packages as the local tour operators near town. Only a small group of local vendors wearing an official uniform with an ID card are permitted to rove around the hotel beach and sell daylong tours and handicrafts.
The latter half of the CBE is observed on Playa Grande where high density of enterprises and a resort are seizing a significant portion of the shore. Along Playa Grande, there are pockets of the coastline that have been enclosed by various smallscale enterprises, which provide convenient services but also limit recreational access.
The resort beach, though theoretically free for everyone, is policed by private guards and dominated by foreign tourists to the point that it can be considered fully or semiprivate. On Playa Grande, stages five to eight on the CBE are vividly observed, but lower stages can also be noticed.
The TALC model firmly places Playa Grande in the development stage. On Playa Grande, local facilities are continuously facing potential or actual displacement by more elaborate and modern ones. Here, local participation and control of the shore is shrinking, a number of villas, hotels and foreign-own restaurants around town compete with the local facilities to take advantage of the rapidly growing tourism industry. In the development stage "local involvement and control of development will decline rapidly" (Butler, 1980, p. 8), a noticeable trend on Playa Grande. The resort area of Playa Grande fits with Butler's (1980) consolidation stage: an area dominated by tourism, international investment, and expensive marketing schemes to attract more distant visitors.

The CBE and Effects on Coastal Communities: Initial Five Stages
Interviewed key informants and community members expressed a variety of social and economic impacts at different levels of beach enclosure. These four stages of the CBE are similar to the exploration and involvement stage of the TALC model where contact between tourists and local residents intensifies for those locals involved in tourism (Butler, 1980 to the development stage reduces the interaction between local inhabitants and visitors (Butler, 1980), which is the case in Rincon. These divisions between The response of all seven tourists staying in the resort complex aligns with the above comment regarding low levels of interaction with non-resort guests. According to the TALC model, a common occurrence in the consolidation state is "some deprivation and restrictions" on the local way of life (Butler, 1980, p. 8). These findings signal that increasingly higher levels of enclosure are not conducive to social exchange between the local and international population as the community is gradually excluded from the shore.
In addition to these social implications, there is an array of economic benefits and Like the CBE model, Butler's (1980) model also indicates an increase in visitation and economic activity for local residents in the first two stages of development.
Interviews with Playa Rincon entrepreneurs demonstrate that increase visitation without enclosure generates opportunities for small-scale entrepreneurial activities. Studies in several developing countries have also showed that various forms of tourism-related business activities are created after the arrival of visitors in new destinations (Dahles & Bras, 1999). Additionally, the lower stages of the CBE are more receptive to new entrepreneurial activity, both in terms of abundance of business opportunities and the cost associated with starting an enterprise at different stages of enclosure. On Playa Rincon, for instance, west businesses totaled 32 small, independent enterprises, while the east side only accounts for 18 enterprises. Hence, while more income is generated on the east side, that income is concentrated in fewer people. Thus, concentrated entrepreneurial activity among fewer community members limit economic prospects for Rincon residents.  (Jones, 2005). Although Playa Grande has a higher abundance of small-scale commercial activity, the cost of creating enterprises on Playa Grande is significantly higher than Playa Rincon. All 11 interviewed entrepreneurs from Playa Rincon reported needing minor economic capital to start and conduct economic activity. "I began my

The CBE, Different Forms of Capital, and the Last Three Stages
business with a small wooden desk on the beach… to start I didn't need much money, Two out of the nine entrepreneurs on Playa Grande reported to have needed significant economic capital to start their small enterprises. Over half of Playa Grande entrepreneurs voluntary indicated that to establish an enterprise on Playa Grande it is more expensive now as compared to the time when they started their business on the beach many years ago, even after adjusting for inflation. This is partially attributed to well-established and dense networks of asociaciones that now impose more obstacles, including higher entrance fees, for new entrepreneurs in an attempt to discourage the creation of new enterprises in an already densely competitive market. Asociacion fees are use to maintain a clean and healthy beach, help provide a secure environment for visitors, pay for maintenance and organization of communal working areas, and other services that are seen as beneficial for the entire community.
The following case between two entrepreneurs in each study site illustrates the disproportionate cost of conducting economic activity at the more developed Playa Grande. An entrepreneur on Playa Grande reported to have obtained a bank loan of US$8,000 (DR$266,496) to create a boat tour company for transporting tourists to nearby beaches. This entrepreneur attributes the high cost to his expensive business equipment (which is needed to appeal to international tourists), but also to the payments he had to make to join the existing boat union. These payments are negotiated on a case-by-case basis, depending on location and levels of development, since large asociaciones that are trying to limit competition tend to charge higher fees. Such initial costs range from USD$100 (DR$4,550) and US$1,000 (DR$45,5000) or more. In require "larger, more elaborate, and more up-to-date" equipment and facilities (Butler, 1980, p. 8). These results suggest that the progression on the CBE reduces the capacity of community members to enter the tourism market as the cost to start an enterprise on the beach increases. More vivid effects regarding the power of capital to homogenized space for international travelers are exhibit on resort areas, which is later discussed.
Political capital is fundamentally linked with economic capital in their efforts to mold the common shore into a highly developed and private area. Sevilla-Buitrago argues that a new global land grab "involves the penetration of corporate investorsusually governments and firms, sovereign wealth funds and investment banks-in participants that commented on the resort on Playa Grande, the investment and money generated at this locale belongs to foreign investors. The accounts of multinational investment in large-scale tourism development is well understood in the DR (e.g., Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005;Sambrook et al., 1992;Sasidharan & Hall, 2012).
As  Other studies in the country have highlighted the impacts of profit leakage, social and economic exclusion, and other socioeconomic problems for the local community resulting from large-scale resort development in regions like Punta Cana and Puerto Plata (Cabezas, 2008;Duffy et al., 2016;Roessingh & Duijnhoven, 2005 regarding resort job creation have also surfaced in other regional studies in the DR and the Caribbean where low-paying jobs in the formal sector compare to neo-colonialism forms of servitude (Cabezas, 2008).
While a variety of socioeconomic problems are observed at higher stages of the CBE, low-mid stages of the continuum preserved local social structures. On Playa Rincon, small-scale economic activity is sustained and improved with slightly more exclusivity, though opportunities for new enterprises are constricted as areas begging to cater to international tourists. On Playa Grande, local economic activity is also uninterrupted with some level of enclosure. Subsistence fishing is undisturbed, instead the small scale-economic activity and tourists support fishers as the fish are sold and consumed directly on the coast. At low-mid stages of the CBE the economic pie is shared within the local community. Mitchell and Reid (2001) demonstrated the socioeconomic benefit of tourism to a rural Peruvian community, at the small-scale.
Other studies also attribute the benefits of tourism development, at lower stages on the continuum, in areas such as improving local education, health, and increase in selfesteem within the community (Scheyvens, 1999). Different states on the CBE, which are influenced by social, economic, and political capital, generate various forms of social and economic opportunities for coastal communities. The last stages on the continuum, however, certainly provide significant constraints to the local entrepreneurs and community.

Addressing Power Imbalances Via Community Referenda
The shores of Playa Grande and Playa Rincon are vital social and economic spaces for the people living in these communities. If political and economic capital manage to fully capture the shore, the socioeconomic ramifications to residents of these coastal communities would be shocking. Therefore, to maintain some level of local jurisdiction over the beach and prevent the invasion of foreign economic and political capital in these two localities, the local community and entrepreneurs of Playa Rincon and Playa Grande need to wield and sustain more control over the shore. Ensuring these communities preserve authority over the shore could be done through enacting a referendum of approval where the community and entrepreneurs enjoy the power to approve or disapprove new development projects. Such a referendum would provide an initiative to increase the participation of the local community in the decision-making process in tourism development, which is a priority for communities in developing tourism destinations (Michael, Mgonja, & Backman, 2013 People grants them some level of land tenure over their local territories (Mcgee, 2009), but such tenure is not guarantee for people using the common shores in the DR.
Nonetheless, the indigenous case provides an example highlighting the importance of a community referendum to contest international development. The success of a community referendum to halt powerful, multinational mining companies and national government initiatives suggests that a similar approach to dealing with influential tourism development could be effectively undertaken in Samaná.
In the DR, such a referendum system is not a novel idea. All over the country a similar system is already in place. On Playa Rincon and Playa Grande, a system of asociaciones already approves and disapproves the creation of new small-scale economic activity. This system has been successful at maintaining local order and prosperity. The local authorities need to give more legal power to the asociaciones system and expand the power of these organizations so that they are able to have a tangible input in the approval of new large-scale projects that would inherently affect them first. This asociacion model, however, should not be constrained to the power of used for small-scale economic activity. However, as the levels of enclosure and development increase and the beach uses and services become gradually tailored towards upscale tourists, economic capital becomes essential to fabricate enclosed areas and political capital increasingly replaces social capital. As these forms of capital are required to establish a beach enterprise, a large segment of the local community is unable to obtain enough economic or political capital necessary at higher levels on the continuum. In this manner, the broader community is often excluded from joining the market and making a livelihood from tourism. A community referendum system is suggested as a prescriptive point of intervention allowing the local community to maintain social capital, local control of the shore, and prevent the supremacy of economic and political capital to overrun the region. Findings also revealed that at level one through four on the CBE, the progressive establishment of essential and new services enhances the social and economic value of the shoreline. An increase in arrivals of tourists leads to an increased in new small-scale entrepreneurship; however, after level five on the continuum, accessibility to entrepreneurial activities declined as ownership becomes concentrated among few entrepreneurs. At level five and above, a significant portion of the community is barred from joining the beach tourism market as it becomes more costly to conduct economic activity in more enclosed and developed areas. The uses of the coast and services by the community are also reduced. Progressively, the last stage on the continuum, marked by exclusive resort developments, provides some employment opportunities for the community, but a vast array of negative consequences makes resort development unpopular and unsustainable in the community. Issues regarding coastal access, limitation on fishing, low-paying seasonal jobs, eradication of local-foreign interaction, and increased competition with the established small-scale entrepreneurs are among the many consequences emanating from the last stage on the CBE.
The CBE model provides a quick glimpse at the different effects of coastal privatization and development on entrepreneurs and the local community. These effects and model are parallel to Butler's TALC model. As other studies in the DR have previously concluded, resort tourism development provides the most negative impacts on the local community. Resort tourism development was necessary in the past to draw foreign investment, develop basic infrastructure, solidify the country standing as top tourism destination, and advance the national economic development. However, now that the DR is a leading tourism destination an upper mid-income and thriving economy, the country needs to shift its vision of development and emphasize small community and regional development prioritizing the wellbeing of the underprivileged segments of the population that have been previously marginalized by the national focus on resort development. As a result, a wholesome tourism vision for the DR could bring the necessary changes for a long-term sustainable development strategy that is conscious and inclusive of regional communities when creating tourism planning and policy.