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Photos by Janet Silvera - A view of the Doctor's Cave Beach, one of the island's most famous landmarks.

As Caribbean dithers & Mexico Hawaii make hay

Janet Silvera, Hospitality Jamaica Coordinator

WHILE THE Caribbean grapples to get a regional marketing campaign off the ground, its greatest competitors, Mexico and Hawaii are spending millions of dollars ensuring they receive their fair share of the tourism pie.

Mexico is spending US$92 million over the next three months to combat the adverse effects of the H1N1 flu, while Hawaii has announced that it will pump US $71 million to shore up the marketing of its product.

The news comes at a time when yet again Caribbean heads are being accused of 'pussyfooting' instead of pushing their weight behind a campaign which could help to take it through the unprecedented global economic conditions which have seen regional arrival figures decrease by three per cent in 2008, compared to 2007. First quarter figures for 2009 have seen up to a 20 per cent decline in some countries.

Odds stacking up

Checks by Hospitality Jamaica have revealed that a number of hotels in the smaller islands of Grenada and Antigua will be forced to close their doors for the months of September and October owing to the low volume of booking.

As if that was not enough, the region is staring the implementation of the nightmarish Air Passenger Duty (APD) by the United Kingdom this November, which is expected to put further pressure on the market.

A regional marketing fund has been on the table since 1992, when it was proposed by the late Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley at the first tourism summit in Kingston.

Seventeen years later and not much headway, the call is being made by concerned tourism stakeholders, even though during the 29th meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM held in St John's Antigua and Barbuda July 1-4, the heads agreed to a strategy of promoting the region as a single destination to capitalise on emerging tourism markets.

make a move now

The heads of government requested the ministers to examine the issues related to the marketing campaign.

"It is pivotal that we market the Caribbean now, because when the tide turns, it will take us about 10 times the amount of money to make our way into the centre or front of the marketplace," Caribbean Tourism Organisation's (CTO) chairman, John Maginley told journalists at Caribbean Week in New York two weeks ago.

The amount of money being proposed to get the effort off the ground is US$60 million. And already, Maginley said commitments, which will see a US$3 tax placed on all airline tickets to the region, have been received from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, The Bahamas, St Eustatius and Trinidad and Tobago.

The funds are to be managed by the Caribbean Tourism Development Corporation, which is jointly owned by the CTO and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association.

Cruise lines and non-CARICOM CTO members are also being asked to contribute to the fund. The findings are to be presented to the heads at a CARICOM meeting July 2-4 in Guyana, said Maginley.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com