David Jessop

In Nassau, in early March, Caricom heads of government took a vital step in the direction of recognising the importance of the region's pre-eminent industry. There, they agreed to give tourism the political recognition that its economic weight deserves.

Their communiqué stated: "Heads of government agreed to devote one day to a special session on tourism during their 29th meeting in July. They also agreed that tourism would be included as a permanent item on the agenda of the conference."

It subsequently emerged that in Nassau, The Bahamas Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham, in his capacity as chairman of Caricom, used his keynote address to his colleagues to focus on tourism.

"Our tourism sector is stalling. While world travel and tourism continued to grow by as much as seven per cent last year, we, in the Caribbean, have enjoyed a far smaller rate of growth, hovering at as little as 2.5 per cent," he told his fellow leaders.

Economic commission

Tourists biking on a trail in Jamaica. - Contributed

At a subsequent press conference, Ingraham told the media: "We are going to focus on aviation and transportation, the marketing and branding of tourism, and we are going to seek to create a sustainable economic commission on tourism. We are going to appoint a task force to produce a report for us prior to the meeting in July."

His announcement was followed in swift succession by news that tourism had dominated much of the conversation at a White House meeting between United States President George Bush and the prime ministers of The Bahamas, Barbados and Belize; and that there would be a tourism summit organised jointly by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) in Washing-ton from June 21-25.

As with much in life, this was a part of a complicated and often difficult process. It began when CTO and CHA reached an accord in 2005 to ensure full collaboration between the public and private sectors and began in a unified way to encourage governments to recognise the central role that tourism was playing in the Caribbean economy. It continued with the emergence of activist tourism ministers with private-sector backgrounds in St Lucia, Jamaica and Aruba. Politically, it owed much to the confluence of the arrival in office of Prime Minister Bruce Golding in Jamaica and the return of Prime Minister Ingraham in The Bahamas, both of whom fully recognise tourism's central role in development.

Despite this, Alec Sanguinetti, director general and CEO of the CHA, sees the major challenge facing the industry as the continuing lack of awareness about its significance among public officials or in the communities where it takes place.

Regional development

He also feels that the industry itself has not yet fully understood its centrality to regional development, the responsibilities that go with this, or the need for it to more fully participate in broader regional and external policy related discussions.

For all these reasons, San-guinetti believes that the adoption of satellite accounting models showing the full economic effect that tourism has and its true value, is an essential component in enhancing understanding.

Jamaica's Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, also believes that it is vital for governments to be able to see the total benefits of tourism in national accounts. For this reason, he has recently signed a contract with the World Travel and Tourism Council to undertake such a study so that Jamaica can become fully aware of the importance of tourism and the need to treat the industry as a national priority alongside manufacturing and agriculture.

Once set aside as a fickle industry with uncertain benefits, there is a growing, if belated awareness, that environmentally sensitive and socially aware tourism that is well integrated into the local and regional economy can create sustainable growth.

Sanguinetti echoes this. He believes that tourism development, through its full integration, can alleviate poverty and build resilience and sustainability among rural and urban communities by providing increased job oppor-tunities and individual career development.

Future growth

"The Caribbean does not have much influence on the cost of oil, but we do have control over the regional issues that are inhibiting investment and future growth," he said.

Sanguinetti has a long list that he hopes that the industry's Washington summit and that Caribbean heads will address. The list includes the establishment of a single Caribbean air space; addressing the cost and frequency of regional transportation; understanding the benefits that individual countries can derive from cooperation and coordination in promoting a Caribbean brand; adopting sustainable development policies to address climate change; undertaking industry-wide human-resource development; addressing the issue of crime, harassment and, other forms of anti-social behaviour; and, trying to determine the point at which taxation on tourism becomes regressive.

What all of this also suggests is that to fully realise its potential, tourism must find a more positive place in the minds of the Caribbean people.

Despite its pre-eminence in the Caribbean economy, tourism has yet to be fully embraced as Caribbean. It seems to lack full legitimacy because to date, the social and economic experience and its benefit for all is uncertain.

Vincent Vanderpool Wallace, CTO director general, is one of the few who are trying to address this and place tourism squarely within the context of the Caribbean's past, present and future.

In recent remarks, he noted that the Caribbean was the world's most tourist-dependent region despite its reluctant embrace by most of its people and governments.

"We did not choose tourism. Tourism chose us. Nothing tells us more powerfully than this that the Caribbean has a natural comparative advantage in the area of tourism." This means, he suggests, that the region can know precisely where prosperity will begin.

Development

"It begins," he says, "when we choose to embrace tourism as the engine for national and regional development."

He defines tourism as being that part of GDP that is stimulated and derived from the economic activity of visitors; as an industry it touches architects, doctors, fishermen, farmers and many more, making the jobs of all those associated with the industry better.

Once the major impediments to the industry are removed, Wallace believes this will enable the region to diversify the Caribbean economy and tourism to become central to the future of the region.

The proof of whether this can happen will be the quality, relevance and implementation of whatever Caribbean heads of government agree in July.

David Jessop is director of the Caribbean Council. Email: david.jessop@caribbean-council.org