Caribbean tourism is on the rebound and almost back to COVID-19 pre-pandemic levels.
This is according to President of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), Nicola Madden-Greig, as she delivered the State of the Industry and Region Address, at the second Caribbean Travel Forum, on Tuesday, at the Sandals Royal Resort, Maxwell, Christ Church.
Ms. Madden-Greig said that although the sector was almost back to pre-pandemic levels and global travel demand was robust post COVID-19, the industry was still in recovery mode.
“We are still in recovery as an industry because some of us are still struggling with the deferred loans and the lack of profitability for the last three years. And while we are doing strong in terms of revenue growth, we still have debt to pay out. So, we are recovering and recovering strong but we are not yet fully recovered from a financial point of view,” she stated.
In addition, Ms. Madden-Greig noted that the pace of recovery is still threatened by rising operation costs, increased airfares, climate change, connectivity, global competition, and labour shortages.
“We know that this (labour shortage) is a challenge not only for tourism but for every sector and that’s a global challenge. We have been working as CHTA with our regional partners at CTO and other universities to ensure we ramp up training and development of our nationals.”
On the issue of climate change and some of the efforts to combat the effects, she highlighted that the CHTA started working with the Nature Conservatory last year on a coral reef preservation and management guide.
She said three weeks ago it was launched in Kingston, Jamaica, and in addition to Jamaica, the CHTA is working with Dominica and Haiti to ensure that coral reefs are protected in those areas which make up 60 per cent of the coral cover for the entire region. The findings from the project would be used to drive other research and protection throughout the region.
The CHTA President also spoke of a tourism demand study conducted in Jamaica. She stressed that if the study is done across the Caribbean and not individually, it could look at demand, in terms of the supply of goods and services required in the industry as a region, and stakeholders would be able to see what could be done in terms of import substitution as a region.
This, Ms. Madden-Greig said, would “help us to drive that tourism retention dollar to our nationals, and ensure that wealth creation for generations to generations is something that tourism is able to deliver”.
Other key points highlighted were:
- Aruba is leading the Caribbean in recovery;
- Barbados is among the top destinations with an upward occupancy trend;
- Intra-regional travel is on the decline;
- Sectoral linkages can be an area for growth opportunity;
- There are great partnerships to be had regionally, e.g. multi-destination packages, and
- Latin America is a crucial market for the Caribbean.