On the rebound

After ten years of volatility and challenges, there are now hopeful signs that tourism in the Caribbean may finally be on the rebound. Simon Suarez, President of the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) says the long awaited tourism recovery appears to have begun to take place. “Tourist arrivals to the Caribbean from the major markets through August 2003 indicate a 6% growth over the same period in 2002. This follows an increase of 7% for the period January-April 2003,” Suarez said at the opening of the CHA’s Marketplace 2004 held in Puerto Rico two weeks ago. “Meanwhile, airlift and capacity to the Caribbean for this winter has now surpassed levels prior to the infamous ‘9/11’ and this underscores the advantages of the Caribbean as a primary tourist destination, in relation to conditions following September 11, 2001. “Based on the positive forecast for the coming winter, the improving US economy — coupled with the increase in consumer confidence — has helped to move the needle forward.” The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) says tourist arrivals from the major markets have been encouraging.

The Caribbean recovery in 2003 was seen across all the major markets, CTO statistics revealed. Arrivals from the United States were up four per cent, Canada increased by 16 per cent and the European market was on the upswing again with tourist arrivals increasing by eight per cent through August compared to 2002 figures. However, the figures show that growth was not shared evenly among individual destinations. “The robust growth in the Canadian market, for example, was due largely to increases of over 30 percent in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, which together account for about half of all Canadians visiting the region,” according to Arley Sobers, CTO’s director of research and information management. The CTO official said that he anticipated continued growth in arrivals through the winter tourist season. As the Caribbean region consolidates the good start to the 2003-2004 winter season, top hotel industry executives are renewing the call for “across the board” support of the marketing initiative that has helped focus international attention on the region since its launch in the fall of 2002. CHA’s Director General Alec Sanguinetti says credit should be given to the joint public-private sector initiative “Life Needs the Caribbean” for the increase in visitor arrivals the industry has experienced in recent months.

He said industry officials must now band together to ensure that the momentum continues in 2004. “With different regions of the world redoubling their marketing efforts to gain, and in some cases, regain lost market share of the world travel and tourism pie, we cannot afford to sit back and allow our bureaucracies to cripple the good thing which we have started,” said Sanguinetti of the campaign which is administered by the Caribbean Hotel Association Charitable Trust (CHACT). “It is a very serious situation. At a time when we should be exploiting this situation, we have no regional funds to spend on the regional campaign. It’s on hold and we are awaiting a new mechanism to raise funds,” said CHACT Chairman Ralph Taylor, referring to the television advertising phase which produced such solid results. Tourism destinations that were hard-hit particularly over recent years are also reporting great improvement in the industry last year with some even reporting milestones. In Jamaica, the tourism sector registered a record flow last year when compared to previous years, according to the island’s Director of Tourism, Paul Pennicock. He pointed out that the number of visitors to the island in 2003 amounted to 1.38 million, an unprecedented figure, up about seven per cent from 2002 figures.

In 2001 some 1.23 million tourists visited Jamaica and 1.23 million in 2000. Cruise ship arrivals in 2003 exceeded all previous figures to reach 1.1 million, an increase of 27 percent over 2002 figures. Tourism is Jamaica’s principal source of revenues over the past three decades and employs one in every four persons on the island. Overall the tourism industry is expected to gross US $1.35 billion, a jump of US$150 million on 2002 fiscal year. With the tourism sector experiencing significant growth in 2003, Jamaica’s Tourism and Industry Minister, Aloun Ndombet-Assamba has described tourism as the new growth engine for the economy. “Today it is no longer sugar or bauxite or banana which is our main earner of foreign exchange, it is tourism. The industry has moved from being a peripheral enterprise to a powerful sector holding centre stage in our country as it does in many other countries,” Ndombet-Assamba said.

Prime Minister PJ Patterson has described tourism as the catalyst that will spur growth in the economy for 2004. Barbados’ tourism sector which contributes over US$ 500 million dollars annually to the island’s economy and is the main source of foreign exchange and employment also reported strong growth in the sector in 2003. Barbados Minister of Tourism Noel Lynch is also forecasting major growth in the island’s tourism industry through a new project. The project includes offering assistance to airlines flying to the island and the establishment of the “Barbados Model” tourist strategy which will provide greater revenues to the tourist companies registered in 2003.

In 2004 Mexico expects to attract some 20 million foreign tourists, who would contribute close to US$10 billion worth of revenues and to achieve this goal the country will expand its promotion in the US, Canadian and Spanish markets. Tourism is Mexico’s third source of hard currency after oil and emigrants’ remittances, according to Mexico’s Secretariat of Tourism. n 2003 the country hopes to register some 9.2 billion dollars’ worth of revenues from foreign tourism, in addition to the arrival of more than 18 million vacationers. Communist Cuba, said to be the fastest growing tourism market in the  western hemisphere is looking forward to welcoming over two million tourists in 2004. After the arrival of 1.9 million tourists in 2003, which represented a 13% increase as compared to 2002, the Cuban tourism authorities hope to surpass the figure of two million visitors in 2004. The tourism sector contributes close to US$2 billion to the Cuban economy.