Positive prospects for Tourism by 2020

CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)    Predictions by World Travel and Tourism Council suggest that by 2021, the direct contribution of travel and tourism to Caribbean Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be 16.4bn Euros.
The Council also predicted that the sector’s wider economic impact on the Region will be 50.83 billion Euros and its total contribution to employment is projected to be 2.76 million jobs.

This projection was laid out by Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, CARICOM Secretary-General (ag) at the opening of the Annual Caribbean Tourism Summit in Brussels, Belgium on 14 March 2011.

Forecasts also posited that the industry would generate 27.17 billion Euros in export earnings with total investment in tourism reaching 6.0 billion Euros or 12.5 per cent of total investment, Ambassador Applewhaite added.

Within this context, she underscored the need for strategies to empower people who were directly or indirectly involved in the sector, to take advantage of the opportunity to deliver new and exciting tourism-related services that would not only offer more choices to the consumer, but also ensure that local communities shared more equitably in the wealth that industry offers.

“The development of tourism goes beyond tax receipts. Tourism has the capacity to play an enormous transformative role in our societies and our economies, creating new entrepreneurs in the industry as well as in other sectors.”

“This requires human resource development through innovative education and training programmes. It also requires specific financial and other facilities to be developed to support the growth of new business,” the Secretary-General said.

She said that the Region was seized of the fact that while tourism offered great opportunities, it was a highly competitive industry which required increased investments. 

As a result, Ambassador Applewhaite said that the Region would pursue the strengthening of linkages between tourism and other sectors of the economy, such as, agriculture, health, education, sports, culture and the natural environment; and it would continue to seek private sector foreign direct investments, including from its European partners.

“It is only through continuous retooling, expansion, modernisation and adjustments that the Region’s tourism industry will remain competitive,” the CARICOM Acting Secretary-General stated.