Caribbean tourism officials are pushing for a partnership with the US government because of concerns warming relations between the US and Cuba will result in a significant loss of visitors to the rest of the region.
Cuba has seen such a surge in visitors that the fragile budgets of many tourism-dependent islands will be hit hard if they don’t take action, Frank Comito, CEO of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association, said.
“If we continue to operate business as usual, and we all draw from the same pie and Cuba is in the equation … there will be serious economic and employment consequences,” he said.
The association seeks to create a Caribbean Basin Tourism Initiative to help boost investment and travel across the region with help from the US.
The plan would be modelled on the Caribbean Basin Initiative, a US-led program in the 1980s that sought to boost trade in the Caribbean and Central America.
The association proposes the plan in a report that warns of Cuba’s impact on the Caribbean and that was sent to the US International Trade Commission.
The report calls the opening of travel to Cuba for US visitors “the biggest and most disruptive pebble to be dropped into the Caribbean pool in fifty years.”
From January to early May, Cuba saw a 36 per cent increase in US visitors from the same period in 2014.
It also had a 14 per cent jump in other international arrivals, and Caribbean tourism officials say they expect those numbers to keep rising.
“Those countries whose focus has been on the United States as their primary source market and who have not felt any competition from Cuba … will be surprised at how sophisticated and effective the Cuban marketing machine has become,” the report says.
The association said the islands where the tourism business could be most affected are those closest to Cuba.
It is unclear whether tourism officials on those islands support the association’s plan or whether they have taken steps to help attract more visitors.
Tourism officials in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas did not return messages for comment.
Comito said the region should work together to boost overall investment and travel to the Caribbean.
“It’s a little idealistic, but I think you need an element of that in this,” he said. “A stronger Caribbean benefits everyone, including Cuba.”
