In large portions of Latin America, the celebration of a young girl’s fifteenth birthday is called Quinceanera. This birthday is significant, often taking on religious overtones, as it symbolizes the passage from childhood to young womanhood. The celebration is marked differently in the countries of central and South America, but the symbolism of the number fifteen is always sacred. There are fifteen candles, or fourteen friends and the Quinceanera recipient. In Brazil it is called the Festa de Debutante.
This ritual of womanhood is generally unknown outside Latin cultures. But it is pervasive, both religious and celebratory, it is interesting to note how young the path to “womanhood” begins for so many.
In July of 2010, Liz Marie Perez Chaparo received a surprise. For her Quinceanera, she was to board the Carnival Victory for an Eastern Caribbean cruise with her brother and her parents. These residents of Puerto Rico were not experienced with cruising and this was a pretty big deal.
They were particularly excited that the ship would be calling at St. Thomas. A day before the cruise, they asked a crew member what they might do in terms of a beach visit on the island. The crew member told them they should head to Coki Beach.
They made their own travel arrangements in St. Thomas using public transportation.. The ships tours seemed expensive and they were looking forward to just spending time together at the beach.
By all accounts things went well on July 12th. Truer, there were some men who looked rather threatening around the entrance to the beach parking lot, just a short distance from Sea World, and the family was surprised by the numbers of hawkers who approached them on the beach. But, by all accounts, it was a good day and the family hired a small, open-air bus to take them from the beach back to their ship.
Fifteen minutes into the ride back they stalled in heavy traffic. There was a cemetery across the street. The family was unaware that St. Thomas has a serious gang problem. They were driving past the burial of a recently killed gang member.
Suddenly, gunfire broke out. Fifteen year-old Liz Marie felt a bullet pierce her side. She started bleeding profusely. In the chaos that followed, someone called an ambulance. It never arrived.
Finally, the bus left in a hurry en route to the local hospital. But they didn’t make it. Liz Marie Perez Chaparro died in her father’s arms.
As they endured their grief, the family found an attorney and they sued Carnival. They felt that the line should have been aware of gang violence on St. Thomas, of the funeral that day and its possible aftermath. The family’s position was that a Carnival employee had suggested they go to Coki Beach so the line was responsible.
In August of 2011, a federal judge in Miami threw out the family’s lawsuit for lack of evidence that Carnival was negligent. Is it reasonable, after all, for cruise lines, tour operators, and, yes, travel agents, to be held legally responsible for independent actions clients or guests might take to visit various port locations on their own?
If a travel agency was involved, would the courts hold that the travel agent should have advised the family that the U.S. Virgin Islands, often described in tourism literature as “America’s paradise”, is actually the record holder when it comes to the most violent and deadly place among US States or territories. The UN Global Study on Terrorism, for instance, identifies the Virgin Islands as the eighth deadliest nation or territory in the world based on a homicide rate that is more than eight times that on the American mainland.
Is this information that should appear in Cruise Line brochures? Should agents notify honeymooners that St. Thomas is no longer safe?
I go to St. Thomas from time to time. I send people there. You send honeymooners there. We all know the island’s many charms. But what is our obligation to the consumer? How could we have helped the Chaparo family avoid this tragedy? Is it really reasonable to imagine that any cruise line or travel agent would have specifically known that a potentially dangerous funeral was to take place on the island that day? Some have gone so far as to suggest that cruise lines pull out of St. Thomas. Crime, we know, has been an issue in the past on St. Croix. Should a floating resort be up-to-date on crime concerns as it approaches a heavily promoted and glamorized port? Is it reasonable to expect this?
The judge said no. The case was thrown out. And so, for the most part, we are left to our own best intentions and an understanding that there are gangs in American cities and we have places that visitors from abroad visit at their own peril. It is, I suppose, the way of the world. We do what we can to tell our clients which areas of a place they ought to avoid. We do what is reasonable. And cruise lines and suppliers continue to help our clients see destinations as places where their dreams can literally be fulfilled. That is the way it has always been.
But the story does not end there. Last August a three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned the Miami judge’s decision to throw out the case. The judges quoted the original complaint that the cruise line “was aware of gang-related violence and crime including public shootings in St. Thomas generally and near Coki Beach specifically.”
So the issue will boil down to whether or not “the danger was foreseeable” in this case.
Is it good enough to say that this family was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did they actually place themselves in a position of danger because they did not do proper research? Had they depended on a knowledgeable agent would they have been warned about the specific dangers to be faced on this particular date in July?
If the courts come to rule that suppliers assume legal responsibility for any and all potential dangers ashore, the implications for agents and those who provide travel products and services are staggering.
Is it really any of our jobs to deconstruct our guests or our clients notion of paradise. Do we just dispense with as much negative news about a destination as we can uncover, just to cover our backs?
If my job ever comes down to destroying the dreams of others as they try to complete whatever worldwide destination their bucket list might contain, I’ll just go and sell insurance. But the travel truth is the travel truth, and the truthtellers in our industry are hard to find.
