On average an all-inclusive holiday costs 40% more than a non-inclusive holiday does. However, once the cost of meals and drinks is factored in the all-inclusive holiday works out far cheaper overall. This means that families who book all-inclusive deals are normally financially better off.

It's an anniversary that won't be celebrated, but this week marks the 20th birthday of air tax. And shockingly in that time, Air Passenger Duty (APD) has risen by 870 percent, nine times faster than duties on wine, beer and petrol.

Several Caribbean islands have recently barred entry by people coming from West African countries affected by Ebola as a measure of “economic survival,” an expert told EFE on Tuesday. Tourism is “the backbone of the Caribbean economies,” Ivan Ogando Lora, director of the Dominican Republic’s Latin American College of Social Sciences, pointed out during a visit to Puerto Rico.

The World Bank estimated that tourism arrivals in Belize in 2000 were 196,000 visitors, with total spend of US$111 million. The Belize Tourism Board (BTB) estimated that in 2013, a total of 294,177 tourists visited the country. This reflects annual growth of between 4-8 percent.

The first thing to be said about the Ebola crisis is that the region should be very proud that among the first to fully understand the seriousness of the threat and respond has been a Caribbean nation: Cuba. It, almost alone in the world, recognized early the extent of the potential crisis we all face if the epidemic is left unchecked.