This Week in Europe, 25 August 2000
Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
How would you answer the following questions? What is the most important industry in the Caribbean? Which is the largest regional sector in terms of its economic contribution and the numbers it employs?
The answer is tourism. But the often uncertain or wrong response suggests that many have yet to accept that the industry is now vital to the Caribbean’s future. Rather, it seems that most governments and officials prefer to see the region as it was and tourism as some sort of recent and not entirely legitimate appendage.
Why this should be is interesting and a question that during the August break there has been the opportunity to consider with some of the many Caribbean visitors in Europe or passing through en route to their vacations.
But first some statistics that are eye opening. They can be obtained by digging into figures produced by international bodies which themselves seem all too often more interested in trying to revive traditional export agriculture or diversify into something imaginary instead of recognising the economic giant that now rules the Caribbean.
In 1999, 71% of the Caribbean’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was derived from services, compared to 22% for industry and 8% for agriculture. Of the region’s GDP, travel and tourism now accounts for 43%. The industry's contribution to national economies ranged from a high of 69% in St Lucia, to a low of 13% for energy and industry rich Trinidad and Tobago. On average, Caribbean travel and tourism related GDP grew by 3.6% in 1999, with Jamaica reaching a regional high of 6.9%. The only Caribbean destination that experienced negative growth rates was the Dominican Republic, where the travel and tourism industry contracted by 0.3% largely for exceptional reasons.
Not surprisingly against this background, the tourism and travel industry attracted 41% of all capital investment entering the Caribbean in 1999. The same figures show that the smaller the island, the larger the share of investment that goes to the tourism industry. Thus 77% of all capital investment entering Barbados in 1999 was directed towards the tourism and travel industry, compared to only 18.2 % in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dependence on travel and tourism for employment ranges from 20 - 60% of the work force in individual islands in the Caribbean. Again, the smaller the island, the greater the level of dependence with Antigua and Barbuda (48%), Barbados (40%), Bahamas (56%), St Lucia (51%) all heavily dependent on travel and tourism for employment.
Even in the Dominican Republic, where dependence on travel and tourism employment is lowest in Caribbean at 20% in 1999, travel and tourism still employs well over 1 million people. The tourism industry accounted for 35% of all jobs in the Caribbean in 1999. In 1997, 14% of all rooms in the Caribbean were in all-inclusives and 9% in timeshares. In 1995, the latest year for which such figures are available, average room occupancy for the region was 66%. Despite all of this the industry in the Caribbean is not doing as well as other destinations. The statistics suggest the Caribbean travel and tourism industry grew by 5.5% in 1999, lagging behind North Africa (6.0%), Latin America (6.1%) and South Asia (9.1%).
So there you are. As important as bananas and sugar are as absolute employers of labour, underpinning social end economic stability in many rural locations, the reality is that for very many countries tourism is now the single most important element in their survival.
But when was the last time that Caricom Heads of Government addressed the needs of the tourism industry? When was the last time in Brussels, Geneva or in international negotiations did a Caribbean Minister from a tourism dependent economy preface their remarks by recognising that the future of tourism, the most public of industries, was now critical to his or her nation’s or the region’s survival?
Among those who hope to change the historic view of the region’s economy is the Caribbean Hotels Association’s (CHA) newly elected President, Ralph Taylor of Almond Beach Resort in Barbados. He believes that the reason that the industry’s importance has not been addressed is because politicians and workers in tourism have not yet made the connection between political survival, the industry’s ability to prosper and become more closely integrated into individual economies.
Others suggest that objections to tourism having a central importance have much to do with the association of service with slavery. They also point to a still prevailing philosophy from the cold war and before which regarded agriculture and manufacturing as legitimising work and the control of the means of production and a residual neo-Marxist belief that there is dignity in manual labour but not in service.
CHA’s new President suggests that many in the region remain ambivalent towards an industry which is wrongly seen as externally dominated, in some undefined 1960’s way as being politically incorrect or as a source of never ending tax revenues for projects other than those that benefit the industry. To overcome this, he believes it will be necessary to begin to address all these questions directly as well as many other issues such as education and training, air transport, the threat posed by cruise ships to the hotel industry and to the environment and the question of tourism’s linkages to other aspects of the economy. He believes that there is an urgent requirement to do so both at both a grass roots level and with Heads of Government. Only in this way, he suggests, can a sea change occur in the region’s perception of its future and the role that tourism has to play.
The question of tourism’s role in shaping the Caribbean’s in the next decade is difficult but one on which there needs to be consensus and leadership. In most economies tourism is far from soundly based with significant proportions of tourism revenue flowing out of the country. For too long talk of integration with other aspects of the economy has been just that. Yet tourism has the potential to reinvigorate agriculture and manufacturing, expand sales of music, foster a quality crafts industry, help provide linkages that promote export markets for the spirits and beverage industry and assist in promoting exotic and organic produce. In this way the tourist industry can underwrite those nations that ensure its further development. This is a point which to date seems lost on the multitude of international development agencies who constantly look past the industry.
Tourism and the message that visitors take away can help cement a Caribbean identity and recognition that the brand name Caribbean has a special cachet and significance. This in turn can bolster the Caribbean’s integrity, self-awareness and culture. All of which is not to undermine the importance of traditional industries but to suggest that as the region looks ahead to negotiations which will further define its place in the world, tourism, its defence and its integration with other sectors should now move to the top of the agenda.