Competition Picking Up Against Caribbean Tourism

With demand increasing in emerging markets -in the Middle East for instance- it will become increasingly harder for tourism destinations in this part of the world to hold on to the positions that they now hold, tourism based officials from all over the world were warned last week in London. They were attending the annual World Travel Market (WTM) event.

It was against the backdrop of a stern reality check that Caribbean Tourism Organization Secretary General Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace again pointed to the need for the Caribbean region to operate as a single space to become more marketable and competitive.

“That is why this whole single Caribbean space is so critically important; you see. We continue to look at ourselves like individual markets when really we are talking about having one, two, three hubs in the Caribbean from Europe and then we have low cost connections from those hubs to all the destinations within the region,” he said.

Mr. Vanderpool Wallace, the former Director General of Tourism in the Bahamas, said there is no need for a single large local market, but explained what could work.

“You can have people feeding in from multiple places; all of this makes these things work,” he said. “So that’s the principle on which this thing is important and that’s a great example where cooperation benefits everybody as opposed as everybody looking to get nonstop service on their own,” the CTO Secretary General added.

Tourism gatekeepers in the Bahamas and the Caribbean have been putting their heads together to come up with fresh, new and innovative ways to add appeal to their markets.

Attendees at the World Travel Market event in London heard revelations contained in the WTM Global Trends Report 2007. One of the findings of the report is that travelers from North America between the ages of 25 and 34 years were for the most part interested in excessive nonstop indulgences for vacations, rather than sightseeing and relaxing.

The report said while the cruises tour the Caribbean including The Bahamas and Mexico, many passengers do not leave to visit the ports of call – they opt to party only on the boat.

“Looking to constantly outdo the last wild party, these travelers, who are ageing and earning more, will continue to seek out outlandish activities and experiences, making debaucherism a long-term trend passed down from generation to generation,” said the report.

Among the places expected to benefit are Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Macau, with international visitors attracted by a variety of factors including the destination’s luxury positioning, facilities available, such as casinos, as well as the local party scene.