ST. JOHN’S, Antigua - Almost all of the countries of this region depend on tourism but the industry does not dominate the economies of all of the Caribbean countries. Jamaica exports bauxite; St Lucia produces bananas and manufactures lights, and Barbados, described as having a well-developed mixed economy also has offshore finance and information services as important foreign exchange earners.
Antigua & Barbuda relies mainly on tourism to keep those dollars flowing into the country. In fact, it accounts for more than half the gross domestic product. Translation: if tourism suffers, we all suffer in this twin island state.  Any one negative incident involving a visitor could have devastating damaging effects on our image, on which we heavily rely to keep the visitor arrivals up.
As Senator Sylvia Omarde-Comacho reiterated in the Upper House this week, “Tourism is our bread and butter,” and “if we don’t fix our product, we are going to suffer more.”