Recently published visitor arrival figures indicate that Caribbean tourism has started down the long road to recovery. Following a disastrous 2020 during which governments closed borders to try to halt the spread of Covid-19 and months when the sector all but ceased operations, visitor numbers are now slowly increasing.
According to Tourism Analytics, the Aruba-based consultancy which publishes tourism arrival figures on a rolling basis, stopover visitors to the island Caribbean excluding Haiti declined by 66.1 percent from 23 million in 2019 to 7.8 million last year. When it comes to this year, however, its website indicates that a gradual turnaround is now under way. When available stop-over figures for the first three months of this year are compared to January, February and March of 2020, the pre-lockdown period when tourism was still booming, TA’s statistics indicate that visitor arrivals are slowly beginning to recover.
Indeed, led by the Dominican Republic, the United States Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the worst may now be past for some of the independent Caribbean’s largest tourism markets, the TA figures suggest.
In the DR
Speaking on the topic recently, Andrés Marranzini, the executive vice president of the Dominican Republic’s National Hotel and Tourism Association, Asonahores, told local television that he expects this year to see four million visitor arrivals — the same as in 2019. As the proportion of those vaccinated in the country’s main source markets proceeds and vaccine rollout accelerates locally, he said, the next 18 months “could see one single high season.” Mr. Marranzini warned, however, that this would require the Canadian, the European Union and British governments to allow a resumption of travel to “safe” destinations.
His optimism coincided with equally positive but more conservative comments by Héctor Valdez, the country’s respected central bank governor. Mr. Valdez told an International Monetary Fund meeting of Western Hemisphere central bankers that the favourable outlook for the country’s economic recovery in agriculture and manufacturing was “supported by the positive signs that are being observed in tourism.” In his remarks, Mr. Valdez observed that the country’s 5.5 to six percent forecast growth rate for this year was supported by the bank’s projections that the country would receive 3.5 million visitors and that its recovery would boost construction, manufacturing and commerce.
Jamaica
In a similar vein, Jamaica tourism minister Edmund Bartlett said last month that his country is projecting long stay and cruise visitor arrivals this year at 1.6 million and related earnings at $1.8 billion. Although the figure, which is predicated on a recovery in the US market, is well short of the 4.3 million visitors and $3.64 billion the country received in 2019, it would represent a significant turnaround.
The view that better times are ahead for tourism is shared by Adam Stewart, the executive chairman and CEO of Sandals Resorts International, who says that the company is already seeing a 65 to 80 percent occupancy rate in the coming months in its hotels across the region.
Mr. Stewart told the Mayberry Investors Forum, “I think for sure the worst is behind us. Once the first vaccination was approved we’re seeing a huge correlation between people being vaccinated and consumer confidence.” He suggested that from May on, aggressive vaccination programmes being undertaken in key markets such as the US and United Kingdom, as well as high levels of pent-up demand, would drive tourist arrivals to the region.
Arrivals increase?
Encouragingly, the Caribbean Tourism Organisation is forecasting a 20 percent increase in arrivals this year over 2020 and a similar uplift in visitor expenditure, which it estimates to have fallen between 60 to 80 percent in its member countries last year.
The CTO cautions, however, that Caribbean performance in 2021 will depend largely on the success of the authorities in the region’s key markets and the Caribbean in controlling the virus. It believes that international travel confidence may not begin to pick up until this summer and may be modified by citizens in key markets being required to vaccinate before travelling abroad.
In contrast, the outlook remains bleak for the return at scale of cruise tourism, which remains subject to a “no sail” order by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Speaking recently, Cuba Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said about tourism’s return, “People want to travel the same or more than before, but things will never be as they were. Now, the most successful destinations will be those that have known how to take advantage of this time of paralysis to innovate, to do things differently.”
Redesigning tourism
Mr. Marrero, a former tourism minister, told the country’s tourism executives that future success will depend on their understanding that the sector is a locomotive for the economy, and that they must significantly redesign tourism. This, he said, would involve ensuring Covid-safe conditions, offering service and cuisine of quality, providing universal internet connectivity, adapting marketing to be social media oriented, and further diversifying the country’s tourism offering away from the beach.
“We are seen as a sun and beach destination, but the strength of our culture makes us different,” he explained, adding that the “varied nature” of the Cuban tourism product is an asset. “We have to guarantee the highest quality in all tourism products that we offer in the country, both to the international and domestic markets.”
Tourism’s importance
What 2020 confirmed is that tourism, if well integrated economically and sustainably, is central to regional prosperity and growth. The first three months of this year have additionally begun to demonstrate how if treated thoughtfully land-based tourism has a greater capacity than any other economic sector in the region to support post-pandemic recovery, because it is able to deliver rapidly an externally led financial stimulus to the economy as a whole.
Measures that ensure the safe recovery of Caribbean tourism this year are therefore vital. However, just as important will be governments and the industry giving greater consideration to measures that will make the Caribbean product sustainable, diverse, more socially relevant and globally competitive far beyond the sector’s predicted full return by the end of 2022.
Mr. Jessop, a consultant to the London-based Caribbean Council, can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org.