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.

A fresh attempt is being made by Caribbean governments and hoteliers to iron out differences with cruise lines, which ply the Caribbean route. The Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), Obie Wilchcombe, made the disclosure following a meeting of Caribbean tourism ministers in New York last week. Speaking at a news conference in New York, the Bahamas Tourism Minister told reporters that ministers have endorsed the stablishment of a tripartite committee that has been set up to review the relationship.

The European travel package market could chalk up a modest 4 percent increase in 2004 following two years of bleak figures, an annual research study conducted among 150 tour operators by German travel magazine FVW revealed this week. However, experts were hoping to see better numbers on the board, taking into account a strong recovery in bookings earlier this year. But the rebound of the travel market apparently hit another snag over the course of the past month, leaving tour operators once again drowned in uncertainty as the summertime travel season closes in.

Three Caribbean tourism ministers have underscored the significance of expanding community tourism if the industry is to remain competitive in the future. The ministers - Jamaica´s Aloun Assamba, St. Vincent and the Grenadines´ René Baptiste and Brenda Hood of Grenada - spoke at a recent town hall meeting at Brooklyn College in New York. "We´re trying to put in place a plan to get tourists to come out of the hotels and experience the cultural attributes," said Assamba, who disclosed that while Jamaica enjoys the privileges of all-inclusive packages, tourists were remaining on the hotel properties rather than exploring the island.

Bermuda´s visitor arrival figures slumped again in April, continuing a trend seen in the first quarter of the year, but industry experts have blamed this on fewer hotel beds being available than last year. There were 34,578 visitors on April - down 1.3 per cent from 35,050 for the same month last year. But figures show that for the year to date, arrivals are down 3.5 per cent at 70,519.

Barbados’s economy is growing by $66.5 million thanks to heftier tourist inflows logged between December 2003 and April this year. In that span of time, the Caribbean island’s travel industry jumped 12 percent compared to the previous period. Estimates reckoned by Barbados’s Tourism Ministry indicate the recently concluded wintertime season was the best in years, yielding $259 million worth of revenues for the tourist sector.