Caribbean nations deserve a piece of the tourism pie
THOUGH TOUTED as one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the global economy, the tourism industry is not as profitable as it should be for Caribbean nations.
Instead, the global travel companies involved in packaging and selling travel to the region are the big beneficiaries, said Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas Dr Hubert Minnis also noting that the region needs to focus its attention on it.
“Tourism will continue to be a leading engine for development within our region. As such, we must ensure the greater retention of more tourism earnings within our region and the greater dispersion of wealth within our economies,” Minnis told delegates on Tuesday during his keynote address at the official opening of the State of the Tourism Industry Conference 2018, now on in Nassau, Bahamas, on Tuesday.
DEPENDENT ON SALES
The Bahamian prime minister pointed out that the global travel companies involved in packaging and selling travel have hundreds of thousands of employees outside the region, yet their annual returns depend quite heavily on their sales to our region.
“Only a very tiny fraction of their hundreds of thousands of employees is involved in local service delivery,” he noted.
In addition, he argued that most of these companies, many operating in First World countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK, and Spain, are involved in other sophisticated aspects of tourism that could engage the minds and talents of many of our very bright and energetic young people, including marketing, software development and other services.
“How can we attract more of the development and management of global tourism to our region to accelerate and increase the range and variety of those sophisticated jobs available for our young people?” he asked.
Minnis, like many other well-thinking regionalists, is of the opinion that the lack of opportunities has contributed to the issue of brain drain in the region and feels that far more talent could be retained if architects, engineers, artisans, attorneys, interior designers, energy specialists and software developers could find the right jobs in the region.
Minnis says that it is time for the Caribbean to begin to own tourism related businesses in partnership with the foreign investors.
‘... We must ensure the greater retention of more tourism earnings within our region and the greater dispersion of wealth within our economies.’