CTO Sec-Gen: Tourism is a serious business

Hugh Riley, Secretary General, of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) delivering his remarks at the annual CTO press conference, reiterated that arrivals to the region hit a new record in 2017, however he cautioned there is still a lot more work to be done in the Caribbean.

While speaking at the CTO headquarters yesterday, he said, “30.1 million stay-over visits, and visitor expenditure of US $37 billion; In short, despite the severe challenges of 2017, more visitors arrived in the Caribbean, and they spent more, but is that enough? Is our work now over? Not by a long way. The Caribbean, with our highly competitive tourism product, has quite some distance to go in order to realise our full potential. Two weeks ago at meetings in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the CTO’s Board of Directors accepted our Strategic Plan for 2018-2022; and with that decisive action, the Board approved seven Strategic Functional Areas, and reinforced the CTO’s mandate to Position the Caribbean as the most desirable, year-round warm weather destination. But if that really is to happen, we cannot simply stop at the results we reported to you today. As a region, we must acknowledge that to rebuild, develop and sustain the infrastructure and the image of the Caribbean, is an immense task. Resources will need to be developed, and realistic attention will need to be paid to the length of time it takes to rebuild an economy and repair a brand seriously affected by natural disasters.”

Riley added, “Reinforcing the value and the attributes of the Caribbean brand, educating the public and the travel industry on the geography of the Caribbean, and generating demand for the region’s tourism product will take time, careful strategy, and money. In other words, establishing leadership of the Caribbean Brand requires more than just sparsely funded, ad hoc efforts. Our first order of business as a region is to stop treating tourism as some sort of casual pursuit. Tourism is a serious business….When we talk about truly engaging our region’s population in the business of tourism, our countries must institute the Tourism Satellite Account systems that allow us to follow the tourism dollar through the economy, so that we can help our countries to truly understand the number of visitors it takes to outfit a school with computers, or a hospital with the latest equipment. Yes, this business can truly be the lifeblood of the Caribbean, but we have to treat it more seriously.”

“The Caribbean Tourism Organization and the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA), are working hand in hand with other industry partners, to implement a plan that will address these issues. The funding for a short-term Caribbean regional marketing campaign is starting to come in, and the arrangements are in place to tell the world we are serious about using our God-given assets to put our region’s economy in the position of strength where it belongs. In this highly competitive business we have to keep fighting, and we have to win,” urged Riley. (NB)