CARICOM Members Agree to Launch $60 Million Campaign to Market the Caribbean as a Single Tourism Brand.

With their tourism-driven economies battered by a stagnant U.S. economy, expensive jet fuel and airline cutbacks, Caribbean leaders meeting this week have agreed to launch a $60 million campaign to market their region as one tourism destination.

At the same time, leaders have given the nod to regional tourism ministers to lobby U.S. officials to remove the $40 departure tax Americans pay when visiting the Caribbean, expand the duty-free allowance and the number of U.S. pre-clearance immigration and customs hubs to include other Caribbean islands.

Currently, only Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Aruba and Bermuda allow passengers to clear immigration and customs there rather than at U.S. airports.

“We are seeing some things every single day that is telling us this (U.S.) recession is deepening,” said Alan Chastanet, St. Lucia’s tourism minister who serves as chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, the administrative body for Caribbean tourism.

The idea of a unified strategic Caribbean campaign is the brainchild of regional hotel owners, tourism ministers and marketing experts who believe that the current economic reality warrants a unified branding effort. It can begin as soon as December or the beginning of next year.

But how the Caribbean will pay for the campaign –estimated at $60 million annually or the amount that Jamaica spends on marketing its blue mountains as a Caribbean destination- remains to be decided.

Leaders have left the decision up to the regional council of trade ministers, who now must decide how much each of 20 Caribbean countries will contribute to $21 million.

Tourism officials plan to raise the rest by reaching out to hotels, the cruise industry and possibly the Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations and the U.S. territories.