Hugh Riley, CTO General Secretary

Hugh Riley, CTO General Secretary
By Jose Carlos de Santiago
In his latest conversation with our editor-in-chief at the WTM fair in London, CTO secretary general Hugh Riley talked about the controversial Air Passenger Duty’s negative ripple effects on the Caribbean region and its fallout among potential British travelers. Mr. Riley also referred to his organization’s projections and strategies toward the so-called emerging tourism markets. This is the exclusive interview with Mr. Hugh Riley.
How is the Air Passenger Duty, APD, affecting tourism from the UK to the Caribbean?
We know that is very difficult to disaggregate the tax from the recession, we know there is so many variables that affect the volume of traffic to the Caribbean, but we also know that it is not healthy when you increase the cost of a vacation to the Caribbean out of the UK by £75 per person in Economy Class and by £150 per person in any class above Economy.
So, when we look at the numbers that are falling to some of our member countries that are dependent on visits from the UK, we have a suspicion that the tax is responsible for at least some of that. When we look at the member countries whose numbers are either even or increasing slightly, we realize that those numbers are still below 2008 level, below the level of pre tax days.
The point is the tax has not helped us; it is in all probability hurting us, and in all probability it is hurting the UK business as well.
What is the European market that you consider has better handled the crisis and currently has the best numbers in tourist traffic to the Caribbean?
That is a very difficult question to answer, because we represent 32 countries in the Caribbean Tourism Organization, and they get various different levels of business from various different countries within Europe. If for instance, you talk to some of our member countries which get business out of France (there are some member countries that get over 80 percent of business out of France), you will see that the business is continuing to come for one reason or another.
There are some other of our member countries for which Holland is a very significant producer… So, it varies from one part of the region to another in terms of where their source markets are and where they place the emphasis, but generally speaking Europe has been a reasonably stable source of business to the Caribbean over the years. The biggest issue is air service. Now, in the recessionary period, air service becomes an ever bigger challenge, but generally, when the times are good, Europe is a very stable source of business to the Caribbean.
What are the steps taken by the CTO in the Russian market?
The Caribbean Tourism Organization is there to guide our member countries and to follow the trends and to show them where we think business is. We have been ourselves paying attention to Eastern Europe, and some of our member countries have paid a great deal of attention to the Russian market recently, and you probably know also that there is discussion about air service coming out of Moscow into the Caribbean. But that falls into the category of exploring non-traditional markets; we are successful as a region based on the fact that we have been able to diversify our sources, and this is one part of that policy to look at Brazil and the rest of the BRIC markets: Russia, India (to a lesser extent) and China. This is a policy which the CTO has advocated, which some or our member countries have embraced, and it is just a sensible strategy to diversify our sources of business.
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Bahamas and Barbados have been taking important steps in the Russian market, including the issue of visas, which is not the case of other Caribbean countries. If they do not go to the Russian market they will not be able to open it. What is doing the CTO in this regard?
We are representing 32 countries, not all of which are independent sovereign nations. The second important factor is that foreign relations are between the source countries and our member countries; we have to seat back and let our member countries –maybe with some advice- make determinations on their own foreign relations. So, issues of visas, which are reciprocal as used, are determined between our individual member country and the country that is being targeted. But I agree with you a hundred per cent that reducing the restrictions is certainly an important means to access a new tourism market.
The CTO attends tourism trade fairs such us WTM and ITB, but it does not attend FITUR in Madrid, which is the second most important travel show in the world.
As my colleague Carol Hay has told you, there are budgetary constraints and probably many of our member countries where Spain is not the number one market have taken the decision not to invest there.
We ourselves are expected to manage the budgets very carefully, so we have to take everything into account. If there are free offers from the organization, then we surely take that into account, but if we find that the space is free and we still do not have an interest of our member countries to be there, then we have to listen to that too, because after all we do not go there to represent CTO, we go there to represent our member countries. Every penny that we spend is their money.
I would also like to say that we do not only participate in shows that take place in English speaking sources of business. We attend World Travel Market; we go every year to represent our member countries at ITB in Berlin; we go to shows in Brazil and Argentina, we just left ABAV in Rio. So, we cannot be everywhere but we try to play an active part in many of the shows and always on the basis of what our member countries would like us to do.
The Caribbean is currently opening doors to many Latin American markets. What is the CTO doing or going to do to improve the promotion and the positioning of the Caribbean in these countries?
We are doing some of that now, by talking to media that reach those markets, but there is a reasonable amount of discussion going on. We go to these shows as I mentioned earlier and we make contact with the tour operators, travel agents and most especially with the airlines; there is a great deal of discussion going on with a number of airlines in Latin American. Some of these companies are already flying into the Caribbean, like Copa and GOL, but there are discussions going on with others as well. The exploration of Latin American markets is active, some of our member countries are already with representation there, and CTO is making sure that we keep the avenues open so that we can share information with each other.