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.

Officials from the U.S. cities of Miami Beach and Orlando said today their hefty tourism gains are sending out a strong signal that Florida is finally stepping out of the 9/11 fallout. Authorities from Orange County in Orlando (central Florida), home to a couple of top-notch theme parks such as Disney World and Universal Studios, reported a 23 percent tax hike on tourism from 2003.

The skyrocketing price of oil is posing a threat to the recovery of air transportation and to its plans to start reaping benefits all over again following a recent deep crisis, the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported this week.

Under normal circumstances, fuel accounts for 16 percent of operational costs for airlines. Yet the 55 percent increase in oil prices from 2003 could make fuel expenditures shoot up from $8 billion to $12 billion overall.

Mexican airlines will add an $8 extra charge on all plane tickets in an effort to offset a 20 percent hike in fuel costs, the National Chamber of Air Transportation (CANAERO) informed.

"We´ll be bound to increase the price of plane tickets. It´s an overcharged fare on fuel that will vary from 50 to 100 pesos ($4.3 to $8.7) per ticket, depending on the kind of flight," CANAERO President Jorge Luis Moya explained.