Dual Sovereignty and the Commodification of Difference in Caribbean Tourism

This article analyses how the dual sovereignty of Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten is translated into a marketable dual exoticism in recent destination branding. Drawing on the 2024-2025 ‘Twice the Caribbean’ campaign, the study examines official St. Maarten Tourism Bureau and partner materials across Instagram, Facebook page, Facebook video, and Discover Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten features. A multimodal content analysis identifies three recurring dynamics: (1) colonial hybridity repackaged as upscale aesthetic capital; (2) hurricane risk reframed as resilient luxury while labour and inequality remain unseen, and (3) Black femininity mobilised as a sensual gateway to ‘authentic’ island life in ways that can align with colourism and class hierarchies. Situating these dynamics within the island’s colonial legacies, neoliberal branding logics, and the marketing of islandness as scarcity, exposure, and connectivity, the article extends feminist Caribbean scholarship to show how race, gender, and sovereignty intersect in the tourism imaginary. A brief comparison with single-metropole territories suggests dual sovereignty intensifies brandable contrast. The findings contribute to island studies, postcolonial tourism analysis, and critical branding scholarship. The study shows how dual sovereignty works as a ‘contrast engine’ that markets resilience as luxury while erasing labour and inequality, offering a caution for island-branding policy and scholarship.