The Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) yesterday called for the establishment of a Caribbean Basin Tourism Initiative (CBTI) to address the Caribbean's socioeconomic challenges and stimulate greater regional trade, travel, and investment, as Cuba gets poised to take a considerable share of the region's U.S. visitor market.
In a press release issued yesterday, CHTA President Emil Lee said that the thawing of relations between the U.S. and Cuba presents to the Caribbean a vital opportunity to take a “hard look” at the region's marketing practices and “advance a new direction” in the region's hospitality sector.
In a position paper titled “Cuba: The great disruption for the good of the Caribbean”, the CHTA emphasized the need for much-improved collaborative dialogue between Caribbean tourism stakeholders and the U.S. International Trade Commission, noting that a CBTI would be modeled off of the U.S.-led Caribbean Basin Initiative but would focus on tourism to stimulate regional trade and investments with the United States.
“We recognize that the opening of Cuba to American tourists will have an impact on both Cuba and the region and we want to maximize the positive benefits for all stakeholders and, at the same time, set a tone for a new era of cooperation among Caribbean nations.
“In addition to policy and program initiatives by the region and the United States to strengthen the industry's competitiveness, there are also opportunities to take a hard look at the local public and private sectors' marketing practices to determine what brings the best results to the destinations,” said Lee.
A CBTI would provide policy and technical support to the region with partners like the CHTA and its government counterpart, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, to ultimately develop “an economically sound, safe and stable Caribbean”.
The report highlighted the potential impact of Cuba's thaw on The Bahamas' cruise industry, with both countries' close proximity to the U.S. potentially spurring some cruise lines to drop Bahamian ports to accommodate Cuban ports. The proximity, the CHTA fears, may also negatively impact the impulse travel enjoyed by The Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Belize.
The report called specific attention to The Bahamas, which it notes has relied on Florida for generating over 20 percent of its arrivals for some time.
“While U.S. tour, airline and cruise executives are eying the tourism potential of the long-forbidden paradise 90 miles south of Key West, Florida, conflicted stakeholders throughout the wider Caribbean have legitimate concerns whether there will be a level playing field and whether the rest of the region will grow tourism arrivals or lose tourism investments and arrivals as they divert to Cuba,” said Lee.
CHTA CEO and Director General Frank Comito also stated that: “Taking advantage of the opportunities which are presented will require leadership and engagement by all stakeholders and in our view the United States must return to the stewardship role it played in the region's economic development several decades ago. The normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations can be the catalyst for advancing a new Caribbean tourism and economic development agenda.”
Despite the economic challenges that Cuba's return presents, Lee hopes that the move will create new opportunities through trade liberalization and ultimately attract considerable investment in regional tourism infrastructure and human capital, which he said “simply cannot be overstated”.
In a recent letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission, Lee said that the reintroduction of Cuba offers “tremendous opportunities to improve the region's economies, reduce unemployment, control national debts, upgrade our industry's tourism product, increase investments and tourism arrivals, and stimulate U.S. and intra-Caribbean trade in goods and services”.
