The Caribbean tourism industry is projected to grow significantly this year, the World Travel & Tourism Council indicated in an analysis on the region´s hotel industry. The business group released projections that tourism industry´s receipts in the region will grow 16.8% over last year, nearly quadrupling earlier expectations.
Visitors are expected to spend $19 billion in the region this year, Executive Director Rick Miller told attendees at the annual Caribbean Hotel Industry Conference. Private sector tourism investments are forecast to grow to $7.4 billion in 2004 - 21.7% of the total investment in the region and 1.6% more than last year, Miller said. Caribbean governments are also projected to spend $1.9 billion on tourism, 4.5% more than last year.
Argentina’s leisure industry raked in $2 billion worth of revenues in 2003, a 7.7 percent slice of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, and it’s now setting aim at making tourism the country’s second-largest economic powerhouse in a way similar to what Spain has accomplished.
Daniel Pablo Aguilera, undersecretary of Tourism Management and Policy, and Daniel Aime, chief of Promotion and Development, aired their views on this issue in a recent press conference with Spanish journalists in Buenos Aires.
The Financial Commission of the Venezuelan Parliament greenlighted the state to own the total amount of shares of flagship airline Conviasa with a $16 million down payment forked over by state-run company Petroleos de Venezuela.
Members of Parliament explained this is the last necessary step for the creation of Conviasa (Venezuelan Consortium of Aeronautical Industries and Air Services, S.A.), an endeavor outlined by the Venezuelan government in order to secure domestic and international air transportation, as well as to promote tourism.
According to a recent report issued by the United Nations on trade and development, direct foreign investment in Latin America and the Caribbean fell down in 2003 for a fourth year in a row, tallying a meager $48.7 billion in the region´s forty-largest economies.
Stacked up against 2002, when the region received $50.7 billion worth of direct foreign investment, Latin America and the Caribbean went south in 2003.
The Costa Maya Tourist Compound, being built on a 12,200-acre vacant lot bathed by the Mexican Caribbean Sea, will require a $1.5 billion investment package, the state government of Quintana Roo informed today.
State Tourism Secretary Artemio Santos explained the Costa Maya compound, intended for deep-pocket travelers, includes the construction of hotels, marinas and other facilities that will make it the second-biggest resort in Mexico with great chances of becoming the country’s premier home port in only three years.
Barbados´s Tourism Minister Noel Lynch stressed his government´s intention to bail British West Indies Airways (BWIA) out of a longstanding crisis and pay off a debt of undisclosed proportions.
Mr. Lynch, who attended sessions of a blue-ribbon panel under the title "Caribbean Tourism: Beyond Sale of Seashells at the Beach," reminded participants that BWIA -with flights to Cuba, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and other short-hop destinations- "must do everything within its power to turn the tables and start getting good results," Mr. Lynch explained.