Editorial | CARICOM and tourism

The Gleaner noted the disappointment of Jamaica’s tourism minister, Ed Bartlett, that the industry appears not to have been central to the discussion of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) heads of government at their conference in Jamaica earlier this month. Nor was any discussion on the sector, or the extent thereof, captured in their post-summit communiqué.

“It is a pity that a formal discussion was not had on tourism, even though CARICOM knows of its importance,” Mr Bartlett said.

This newspaper would be surprised – given critical tourism-related decisions the leaders took at their February summit – if the industry wasn’t seriously on their agenda in Montego Bay, which would also raise questions for Jamaica, including Mr Bartlett’s success in pressing his policy priorities. For, as the current rotating chairman of CARICOM, Jamaica’s prime minister, Dr Andrew Holness, would have had significant say in setting the summit’s agenda and in establishing key priorities for Jamaica’s six-month term.

In that event, we can only assume that the failure of the Montego Bay communiqué to specifically address this was either an oversight or a strategic decision, which, given Mr Bartlett’s concerns, should be publicly clarified.

GRANULAR STUDY

Indeed, at their February summit in Barbados, the heads of government mandated the CARICOM secretariat and the Caribbean Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) to “undertake a granular study of the linkages between tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, entertainment and cultural sectors in the region”.

“The study should identify the 20 most important products used by the tourism sector from each of the other sectors, with a view to facilitating more and better regional production of these products,” they added.

Additionally, Sandals, the Jamaica-based regional hotel group, agreed to serve as “a laboratory for the practice of tourism in the region” as well as to work with the CPSO and the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) on how to advance the “greening and digitalisation of the tourism industry”.

The groups were to provide updates at the Montego Bay summit.

CARICOM members, based on 2022/23 data, grossed over US$17 billion annually from tourism, or around 27 per cent of the amount earned by the wider Caribbean region. Jamaica earned US$4.35 billion in 2024 and projected that to rise to US$5 billion this year.

However, the region’s tourism retention is low. Jamaica is the highest among CARICOM members, where the government claims a retention of 40 per cent. That means 60 cents of every dollar earned from tourism leaves the country to cover the costs visitors pay for coming here and for maintaining them on the island.

In that regard, if more of what the industry uses or consumes is efficiently produced in the region, it means higher levels of retention of tourism dollars and more jobs in other sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing, for Caribbean nationals.

For instance, Jamaica has a food import bill of US$1.4 billion, a substantial portion of which is to meet the needs of the tourists. However, experts say that between 20 per cent and a quarter of overall food imports could be replaced with domestically produced substitutes, which is in line with CARICOM’s initiative to cut the region’s food bill by 25 per cent by 2030.

It was in this broad context that this newspaper viewed the CARICOM leaders’ call for a structured creation of linkages between tourism and the wider economy (including the use of Sandals for the observation of best practices in training) as a potential embryo of a practical regional industrial policy.

REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY

Indeed, the CARICOM treaty contemplates a regional industrial policy that operates alongside national programmes, and the leaders appear to be pressing for an updated scheme to help accelerate community-wide output.

Their Montego Bay communiqué said: “Heads of Government noted the ongoing work to prepare a CARICOM industrial policy and strategy, which will promote government interventions and policies to encourage, support, coordinate and improve the capability of specific industries, sectors and firms to achieve and sustain regional competitiveness.”

Obviously, the CARICOM/CPSO study on production for the tourism industry would fall under this broad umbrella.

Perhaps, as Mr Bartlett has argued, there is too much institutional fragmentation in respect to tourism, and that industry should become a standing item on the agenda of the community’s Council on Trade and Economic Development (COTED).

But the issues to be addressed are not merely incentives to encourage investment or expand travel connectivity. There is a need, too, for serious discussion and engagement on tourism’s sustainability in the context of climate change, as well as the industry’s impact on communities.

Anti-tourism demonstrations in Spain and Portugal and elsewhere are warning signals which Jamaica and the Caribbean should heed and plan for. With Prime Minister Holness as current chairman, Mr Bartlett should have an ear into which he can more than whisper.