TOURISM: Dark Clouds over the Caribbean

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, May 11 2001 (IPS) - The Caribbean region’s tourism industry has begun to feel the impact of the cooling off of the U.S. and European economies, said authorities and experts attending the 21st Caribbean Tourism Convention in the Cuban capital this week.

The concerns of the region’s tourism sector, which brings in combined annual revenue of 18 billion dollars, have grown in the wake of decisions by German and British airlines and tour operators to eliminate routes or reduce frequency of flights to the area in the past three months.

Britannia Airways’ suspension of its monthly flights from Germany to the Dominican Republic dealt a heavy blow to that Caribbean island nation’s leisure industry.

Participants pointed out that Germany used to account for one- quarter of arrivals to the Dominican Republic, which took in around three billion dollars in tourism revenue last year.

Press reports from the Dominican Republic say the Britannia Airways decision has already led to the closing of seven hotels – with a total of more than 400 rooms – along the country’s northern coast, and threatens to drive other businesses into bankruptcy.

Arrivals to the Caribbean have clearly declined, and our countries should join forces to address the situation, said Jean Holder, the secretary-general of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO).

Holder noted that the World Bank’s annual report projected just 2.2 percent growth for the global economy this year, far below last year’s four percent, especially due to the slowdown in the United States, Europe and Japan.

According to World Bank forecasts, industrialised nations will see their overall growth rate fall from last year’s 3.6 percent to 1.6 percent this year.

CTO statistics indicate that 45.6 percent of travellers arriving in the Caribbean come from the United States, a market that is off-limits only to Cuba, due to the 40-year-old U.S. embargo against this socialist nation.

Europe, which accounts for 25.5 percent of arrivals to the region, posted just 2.2 percent economic growth last year, while the euro weakened to less than 0.90 cents of a dollar, Holder noted.

The nations of the Caribbean should not underestimate the significance of tourism to their economies, the CTO executive told the Caribbean Tourism Convention running Monday through Friday, which has brought around 1,000 experts from 40 countries to Havana.

The regional tourism industry draws more than 20 million people a year and over 18 billion dollars in revenue, while providing jobs to some 900,000 people, Holder told the press.

As part of the strategy to address the current difficulties, Holder recommended that the inter-Caribbean market be strengthened by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by cruise ship tours.

An estimated 90 percent of visitors who arrive on cruise ships are travelling with U.S. companies, which also dominate around 70 percent of flights.

Holder said the time had come to review a few aspects, such as the prices tourists are charged. But she underlined that every step taken must be backed by thorough and meticulous research.

She also called for special attention to sustainable tourism and promoting the Caribbean as one single destination, an initiative that the CTO has endorsed since 1992, but without the hoped-for results.

In Cuba, the biggest island in the Caribbean, tourism grew at an annual rate of 17.5 percent over the past 10 years, although it received 1.75 million visitors in 2000 rather than the projected two million.

According to the government-controlled press, the low level of growth from 1999 to 2000 was a result of factors like the depreciation of the euro against the dollar, high oil prices, and the Millenium Bug, which caused widespread fears that computer systems would go haywire at the turn of the century.

Cuba’s biggest source of visitors is Canada, which accounts for 16 percent of arrivals, followed by Germany (11 percent), Italy (10 percent), Spain (nine percent), France (seven percent), Britain (five percent), and Mexico (four percent).

Experts here believe that if the restrictions imposed by the U.S. blockade were lifted, two to three million people from that country would almost immediately choose to visit Cuba, to the detriment of other Caribbean nations.

Despite the embargo, official Cuban statistics reflect a steady rise in the number of U.S. visitors over the past eight years, from 14,715 in 1993 to 77,000 in 2000.

Marazul Tours Inc, linked to the Cuban tour operator Havanatur, currently offers direct weekly charter flights from New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

Bob Guild, the U.S. representative of Marazul Tours, told the local press here that starting in June, there would be two flights a week from New York and Miami, as well as the weekly flight from Los Angeles.

That traffic will join the existing flights to Havana via Cancun in Mexico, Nassau in the Bahamas, and Jamaica, he explained.

Mexicana Airlines, meanwhile, will expand its frequency to 10 flights to Cuba, having reached an agreement Tuesday with Cubanacán SA, Cuba’s biggest tourism consortium, on creating two new routes to Havana and the city of Santiago de Cuba, located 967 kms east of the capital.

This month, the company Lloyd Bolivan Airlines began to make two round-trip flights a week to Cuba, from Santa Cruz to Cancun, and from there to Havana.