Ali warns Caribbean to scale up or risk being left behind

GEORGETOWN, Guyana:

Guyana’s President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali has warned Caribbean tourism leaders to “scale up” or risk being left behind as destinations in the Middle East and Latin America pour billions into tourism infrastructure and development.

Ali said the Caribbean could no longer depend primarily on its beaches, natural beauty and established global appeal, arguing that the next phase of tourism must be driven by larger and smarter investments in transportation, resilience, technology, visitor experiences and regional integration.

Addressing Wednesday’s official opening of the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s State of the Tourism Industry Conference 2026 in Georgetown, Ali said the region was at a critical point.

“For tourism to succeed, compete and stay alive in this region, we have to scale up our thinking, scale up our infrastructure, scale up our commitment,” he declared.

His intervention comes at a time when major hotel, resort and infrastructure investments are being announced across the Caribbean, signalling continued investor confidence in the region.

However Ali warned that the Caribbean cannot view those investments in isolation from what competitors are doing globally.

He pointed to Saudi Arabia’s plans to add 500,000 hotel rooms by 2030, and said Brazil had announced a US$2.1-billion investment plan over the next three years concentrated on luxury development.

Mexico, he said, is investing approximately US$30 billion in a major railway project as destinations across Latin America and the Middle East position themselves for future tourism growth.

“The infrastructure tells you a story,” said Ali.

For the Caribbean, he argued, that story should trigger urgency.

“We run the danger in this region of complacency,” he warned.

Ali said the Caribbean’s natural assets have given it an enviable tourism product, but compared the danger of relying on that advantage with the experience of West Indies cricket.

“There was a time when West Indies cricket was the powerhouse of the world,” he said, arguing that its dominance was built largely on the region’s natural talent. Today, he said, the circumstances are dramatically different.

“Our natural product and our natural beauty are important assets. But if we are complacent about the way we retool, reorganise, reorient, revalue, reposition this asset, we are not going to optimise its value in the future.”

Ali identified transportation and regional connectivity as perhaps the Caribbean’s most important competitive challenge.

“The only thing that could take us forward by scale is integrated infrastructure, starting with an integrated transport system,” he said. He envisioned a Caribbean in which visitors could easily combine the traditional sun, sea and sand experience of the islands with the forests, rivers and biodiversity of Guyana, Suriname and Belize.

Ali said future tourism projects must therefore be fundamentally different from those of the past.

“When we conceptualise a project today, we must be building for resilience, building for market, building for experience, building for expectation, building for storytelling,” he said.

He pointed to Guyana’s own infrastructure programme, including a new airport terminal, two regional airports, a deep-water port, roads and new urban development, as examples of interconnected investment.

Ali also urged the Caribbean to look seriously at partnerships with the Middle East, acknowledging that individual regional countries cannot match the resources being deployed there.

He pointed to the Middle East’s aggressive pursuit of luxury tourism, international sporting events, concerts, festivals, theme parks and conferences. Rather than Caribbean countries individually attempting to attract major international events, Ali suggested a collective approach.

“We can’t individually go for some of these events, but collectively we can decide that, by 2035, there are 10 events that we want to bring to the region,” he said.

He called for the CTO to help craft a regional tourism vision to 2035, encompassing investment, transportation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, workforce development, supply chains and new international partnerships.

Ali also challenged the industry to deepen its connections with Caribbean agriculture and manufacturing, questioning where tourism businesses source their food and how regional farmers and producers could benefit from the sector’s growth.

He said the Caribbean has a strong tourism product and substantial demand, but warned that neither guarantees its future.

“We can sit back and say everything is bright and beautiful. We have 65 per cent occupancy throughout the region. Yeah, that’s good,” Ali said.

However, his message to the industry was clear: follow the investment.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com