The CARICOM Secretary-General highlighted the critical importance of the tourism industry to the Caribbean region and the industry's vulnerability to the negative impacts of major global crises, and underlined that Caribbean countries need to intensify their quest for development finance to support the industry.
15 March 2011: The Acting Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, said the Caribbean region needs to intensify its quest for development finance to support the tourism industry in the region.
Applewhaite was speaking at the opening of the Annual Caribbean Tourism Summit in Brussels, Belgium, on 14 March 2011. Applewhaite’s call for intensified finance-seeking was delivered in light of the critical importance that tourism represents for the region — it accounts for 12.8% of Caribbean countries’ gross domestic product (GDP) — as well as the industry’s vulnerability to the negative impacts of major global crises.
Pointing out that the region had not yet recovered from the global economic and financial crises, which had been exacerbated by natural and human developments, Applewhaite said the Caribbean Forum of African and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) anticipated that the Tourism Summit would result in “closer and sustained policy dialogue on tourism and related tourism development issues with Member States of the European Union, the European Parliament and the European Commission and begin a process that will give tourism a greater focus in future Caribbean-EU relations.”
She noted that the dialogue should include an exchange of views on policy issues related to Caribbean tourism, such as: aviation taxation; the impact of crime; the need to increase airlift, training and research; public health; foreign direct investment in the industry; and CARIFORUM-EU cooperation in tourism within the context of the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement. [CARICOM Press Release]