Time Has Come for Caribbean Tourism to Move to a Much Higher Level of Competitiveness

For years, we got away with touting year-round warm sun, sand and sea as if those qualities were unique to us. We soon discovered that there were other places in the world that not only started to make the same claims but were selling their year round sun, sand and sea products at lower prices and at better values than the Caribbean. No one should therefore be surprised that our market share of tourism plummeted.

Nowadays, despite the constant reference to room rates, tourism professionals in our region are coming to recognize that vacationers do not buy rooms. Instead, they buy anticipated experiences and that, in fact, we are in the business of selling not hotel rooms but experiences for which we can establish a compelling global comparative advantage.

With consumers becoming more and more concerned about their health and the environment, maintaining the naturally clean, green and serene Caribbean is beginning to emerge not only as an environmental imperative, but also as our newly recognized global comparative advantage ready to serve as a healthy oasis for an increasingly stressed out world.

So what better place to focus on one’s health and wellness than the naturally clean, naturally green and naturally serene Caribbean. It is no accident that we have come to the conclusion and now declare it in our slogan that “Life Needs the Caribbean”.