At first, you see only mounds of stones, a few trees bursting through the soil, a collapsed wall that seems to have been twisted and buckled. Slowly, recognizable forms take shape and you see a house, a long wall, a small pyramid.

While the development of Haiti’s tourism sector is very much in its early stages, there could be a way to jumpstart it — by taking advantage of island hopping. Haiti Tourism Minister Stephanie Villedruoin visited Turks and Caicos on Thursday to explore the possibility of a partnership between the two sides, with the ultimate goal of drawing island-hopping tourists to Cap-Haitien.

The trend now is for people to take shorter vacations of all kinds — by land, sea or air — or to combine a short land vacation with a short cruise. Cruise lines are responding by directing more of their resources toward cruises of three to five nights, especially in South Florida, the capital of the short cruise.

How do you make Trinidad and Tobago’s hotels, guest houses, bed and breakfast establishments, stand out from their regional competitors? One sure way is by way of a strong online presence, including having a user-friendly website, information on why a traveller would benefit from choosing your establishment over any other.

The new Russian presence in the Caribbean is demonstrated in the form of its tourists coming into the region in rapidly increasing numbers, enabling the sector to diversify its source markets and grow again an industry suffering from increased global competition.