Tourism Boosting Regional Construction, CHA Says

Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) executives continue to stress the vital importance of travel and tourism in the region, highlighting the role capital investment in tourism infrastructure plays in boosting the Caribbean construction sector.

CHA President Peter Odle and Director General and CEO Alec Sanguinetti spoke at a meeting of the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) hearing on the Caribbean region, at which they presented information crucial to the enhancement of US policies regarding economic growth, trade and tourism in the Caribbean.

The CHA delegation stressed that travel and tourism is also a catalyst for construction and manufacturing. Capital investment in travel and tourism was estimated at $9.4 billion or 19.9 percent of total investment in year 2007. By 2017, this should reach $17.5 billion or 19.7 percent of total.

As the CHA executives would have it, the above statistics clearly demonstrate that Caribbean tourism is a prime example of an industry that has to-date managed to compete successfully on a global scale despite country-level constraints created by geographical size and distance from major markets, and often being limited in human, financial, and in many cases, physical resources.

Despite these obstacles, tourism is acknowledged as a major contributor to employment, foreign investment, and economic development, and has helped to raise the standard of living for the people of the majority of Caribbean countries.

The latest available statistics for Caribbean tourism arrivals in 2007 indicate that arrivals from the United States amounted to nearly seven million people accounting for 44.8 percent of total arrivals of just over fifteen and a half million people.