CTO Warns the Caribbean Not to Take Success for Granted

Despite record/setting numbers in Caribbean tourism for 2017, secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Hugh Riley warns the region’s countries against taking the industry success for granted.

Speaking at a tourism industry performance review press briefing last Thursday, February 15, at the CTO headquarters in Barbados, Riley rhetorically questioned whether the 30 million in stay-over visits the region recorded last year is enough and whether the work is over for individual tourism destinations.

“The Caribbean, with our highly competitive tourism product, has quite some distance to go in order to realize our full potential,” he said.

He stated that two weeks ago at meetings in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the CTO’s board of directors accepted the region’s strategic plan for 2018 to 2022; and with that decisive action, the board approved seven strategic functional areas, and reinforced the CTO’s mandate to “Position the Caribbean as the most desirable, year round warm weather destination”.

He stated that as a region, "we must acknowledge that to rebuild, develop and sustain the infrastructure and the image of the Caribbean, is an immense task”.

Resources will need to be developed and realistic attention will need to be paid to the length of time it takes to rebuild an economy and repair a brand seriously affected by natural disasters, he added.

“Reinforcing the value and the attributes of the Caribbean brand, educating the public and the travel industry on the geography of the Caribbean, and generating demand for the region’s tourism product will take time, careful strategy, and money.”

In other words, Riley added, establishing leadership of the Caribbean brand requires more than just sparsely funded, ad hoc efforts.

“Our first order of business as a region is to stop treating tourism as some sort of casual pursuit. Tourism is a serious business. 

“It employs, directly and indirectly, 13.7 percent of the people in the Caribbean, and it contributes, in total, from seven percent to over 80 percent to gross domestic product across the region.”

He added that tourism is the business that delivers foreign exchange every time a plane lands and a cruise ship docks.

It also reduces unemployment and delivers massive amounts of tax dollars to the national treasuries of Caribbean countries.

“Therefore, we should worry when we’re not using this job-creating, tax-generating, foreign exchange earning machine to its full potential.”

The Secretary General further explained that while the region is thankful for the results achieved in 2017, and countries can and do rightfully celebrate these victories, unfortunately there are bigger celebrations occurring in the places that are stealing the Caribbean’s market share.

He said that the Caribbean Tourism Organization and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), are working hand in hand with other industry partners, to implement a plan that will address these issues.

Adding that the funding for a short-term Caribbean regional marketing campaign is starting to come in, and the arrangements are in place to tell the world the Caribbean is serious about using its God-given assets to put the region’s economy in the position of strength where it belongs.

Source: Turks & Caicos Weekly News