CARIBBEAN PERSPECTIVES
An in-depth focus on Caribbean issues

The writer is a business consultant and specialist in Caribbean Affairs

The Caribbean Tourism Organization’s upcoming Leadership Strategy conference in Barbados will be held against the backdrop of modest recovery in tourist arrivals to the region for the first half of the year, continuing challenges in the European market and calls from industry stakeholders for governments to cough up the funds to launch the long-mooted and badly needed regional marketing programme. The Oct 8-11 CTO Forum, to which Caribbean tourism leaders and strategists have been invited, will focus on issues related to financing, marketing, branding, distribution, immigration, security and sustainability. 
According to the Barbados-based CTO, overall arrivals to the 33 Member States was up by 3.2 % for the first half of 2010, compared with a similar period last year. “This year’s increase so far has been led by some recovery in the US market which increased by 5.7%. This was largely offset by a poor performance in the European market (-5.1%) and in particular the UK market which shrunk by 13.9% in the period.”
The North American market has shown signs of rebounding this summer, although the sluggish US economy is still affecting consumer confidence, resulting in American visitors being cautious in their spending.
Cruise arrivals to the region increased by 6 percent for the first half of the year, compared with a similar period in 2009. The Bahamas, Bermuda and Belize did particularly well in attracting cruise business.
Ralph Taylor, Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA), one of the sponsors of the CTO Conference, says the Barbados tourism industry for 2010 so far has been “performing reasonably well in a very difficult environment.”
Increased marketing and additional airlift have contributed to the 4 per cent increase in arrivals for the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2009, especially in the US and Canadian markets.
Taylor believes the UK market will continue to be challenging, as consumers there are faced with uncertainty with a new government, an economy that is “tottering out of recession”, an increase in their VAT, and the much talked about Air Passenger Duty (APD).

“British visitors tend to stay for about 11 days compared to five days for Americans and seven days for Canadians so the decline in arrivals from the UK has had a significant impact and we will continue to feel the pinch of the downturn in the European economies,” Peter Odle, Managing Director of Mango Bay resort in Barbados noted.
While visitor arrivals to Jamaica were up by 7.3 percent for the first four months of 2010 compared with the previous year, President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association (JHTA), Wayne Cummings, is forecasting “anaemic to no growth” for the second half of 2010 “due to the West Kingston incursion and bad press Jamaica received.”
The Jamaican tourism picture for the next year is expected to be much brighter. “The winter will definitely be a positive one, mainly due to the heavy investment in marketing that is taking place right now by the JTB and the Private Sector businesses to try and recover from a sluggish summer and disastrous fall.”
Cummings said the “stimulus” package from the government in the last quarter of 2009 was extremely helpful to the sector and the “saving grace that helped us get through the worst economic year in our modern tourism history.”
Noting that consumer confidence is at its lowest, the Sandals Resorts Executive, like many other hoteliers across the region, agrees with the warning from the World Tourism Organization (WTO) that the termination of stimulus packages by Governments prematurely could have disastrous consequences.
Tourism officials from the Bahamas described the industry‘s performance as being on the “upswing”. “The Bahamas Hotel Association (BHA) reported that the average hotel occupancy for 2009 calendar year was 71.5%, a marked increase over the 2008 figure of 65.9%.  This, despite the fact that the average daily room rate increased by US$15.17 during the same period,” said Ambrose Morris, Regional Manager of Communications at the Bahamas Tourist Office in Canada.
The CTO’s Director for the Americas, Sylma Brown Bramble, described 2010 as showing the light at the end of the tunnel. “The Caribbean is still affordable, there are many bargains to be had, there are so many different vacation experiences and we are the most hospitable people in the world. The key is to make the Caribbean more visible in the market place,” Brown stated at her New York Office.
“Caribbean Week” activities in the US and Canada that involve marketing the Caribbean through media events, culinary and cultural events, the resuscitation of the CTO Chapters and the launch of new ones across the US and Canada, are designed to do just that.
Fernando Abreu, CTO’s Deputy Director of Marketing in New York, advised that the Chapter system, in which travel agents play an integral role, has been revamped to improve both “quantity and quality”. Chapters in Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Miami were among those relaunched this year and those on the cards for 2011 include Canada, Atlanta and New York.

The CTO ‘s Leadership Strategy Conference agenda includes a keynote address from British Airways CEO Willie Walsh and sessions on targeting China’s new millionaires and upscale travellers, destination branding, mastering the social media, airline networking and planning, and the security of the Caribbean’s borders. A new CTO Chairman will be elected at the Barbados meeting.
Caribbean tourism executives also feel there is a “regional air crisis” that needs to be addressed because it is difficult to get around the region without waiting for a long time and paying expensive rates.
Some industry stakeholders suggest the CTO Conference should also focus on issues such as continued Government financial support to bolster the industry and prevent layoffs, the implementation of the regional marketing fund, more training for industry professionals and education for consumers, as well as ways to overcome “the snail’s pace at which Governments respond”.
“We have to recognise that the Conference will not solve all of our problems. It will be a place to share and shape ideas, widen our perspectives and then perhaps have another forum with small committees to convert some of our recommendations to action programmes,” the BTA Chairman responded.
Taylor, President and CEO of Almond Resorts, believes one possible way to move forward with the planned US $60 million regional marketing fund is to apply a levy on tourist arrivals and departures and a tax on airline tickets.
The CTO Secretary General Hugh Riley expects the CTO Conference to help sharpen the focus on the issues that need urgent attention. “While no agenda can meaningfully cover every concern, there is value in providing delegates one-on-one access to the industry’s thought-leaders so that individual questions can be answered in ways that are not always appropriate for an open forum.”
Noting that the conference is not just for seasoned tourism practitioners, Riley advised that “the more we involve the general public in the notion that tourism is everyone’s business, the closer we will get to sustainable success.”