Across the Caribbean, governments and the tourism industry are developing new strategies and initiatives aimed at trying to offset the fall in visitor arrivals that most nations expect from April onwards as a consequence of the global economic crisis.

As nothing else before has done, the recession has caused a much needed and long overdue recognition of the importance of an industry that over the last two decades has come to dominate almost all Caribbean economies and create important linkages with local manufacturing, services and agriculture.

Recently the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) made clear the potential threat that the recession posed to the industry in the region. It noted that about 75 per cent of tourists to the English-speaking Caribbean came from economies in recession; predicted that tourism in 2009 will only grow by a maximum of between zero and two per cent; and reported that tourism has  become the main source of income for all but the three Caribbean economies (Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad).

In response to the impending crisis in tourism, Jamaica, the OECS, Barbados and the Bahamas have introduced fiscal relief programmes for the industry and have identified new forms of marketing support and other measures aimed at stimulating tourism growth.

But while these are welcome developments, in some cases they are short term and carry with them the implied or actual suggestion that within a year or so business will return to normal. Unfortunately, this may not be the case in most of the region’s major markets, for reasons that go back to well before the present crisis began.

Since 2007 the international travel market has been undergoing a process of change as a consequence of which the Caribbean (with the notable exceptions of Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic) had begun to experience a significant decline in tourism arrivals as competition grew from other global destinations. There are many reasons for this, but all in the end come down to whether the Caribbean’s tourism offering is internationally competitive and if the specific mix of product, marketing, reputation and facilities in individual nations, reflect the aspirations of an increasingly diversified international travel market.

Put another way, it is very easy for regional destinations to continue doing the same thing: seeing vacations in the Caribbean as only being about sun and sand; building more rooms; continuing to focus on all-inclusives, condominiums and attracting global brands; and relying on traditional feeder markets, without recognising that the tourism market is changing. The new tourism market is becoming more segmented and subject to clients changing aspirations about themselves, their lifestyles and where and how they wish to vacation.

This is not to say that the region’s traditional market for beach vacations will disappear. Rather it is to ask the question how the region might extend its industry in ways that are new, and to note the need to add value to the existing product through facilities and attractions that encourage more higher end visitors.

Most studies on future trends in tourism identify radically changing approaches on the part of these visitors. They tend to divide visitor thinking by age and wealth. They suggest there will be time-rich individuals largely between 50 and 70 years of age on good pensions who can travel without constraint. These are visitors who are looking to broaden their experience, knowledge and happiness through understanding more about where they visit and more about themselves through what they experience or through more formal learning.

In effect they are not tourists they are travellers. They want to change the relationship between host and guest and seek genuine rather than staged experiences. They want a destination to offer opportunities to be able to extend themselves through creative pursuits and educational, spiritual or religious activity in order to mark a way point in their life. By default this rapidly growing segment of the market required tailor-made vacations and much more in the way of alternative facilities to those offered by traditional beach hotels, tour operators and cruise lines.

Such visitors contrast greatly with another category: those that are time-poor but relatively well off financially. This group will typically be in professional or skilled employment, be between twenty and forty and willing to spend money in a manner that will deliver an experience through a single purchase that requires a travel agent, tour operator or local company prepared to provide a complete, high quality services from arrival to departure.

Beyond this changing profile of visitors and their needs other changes are taking place in the international tourism market. Traditionally the region has sourced the majority of its visitors from North America and Europe and to a much lesser extent the rest of the region. It has also placed an emphasis on returning friends and family. However, the new high growth markets for travel are non-traditional: the emerging economies of Brazil, China, India and Russia, while there is a slowly growing appetite for long-haul travel from the EU states of Eastern Europe.

The challenge is to find new ways to establish the region and individual destinations as brands in these markets and as being locations where visitors can do more than lie on the beach or play golf.

Jamaica has already proved that market diversification is possible. It has enhanced its brand with much help from the international recognition of reggae and its sporting achievement. It is moving rapidly to develop a new product mix that includes a wide range of events; it is cultivating faith based tourism; has diversified its market so that it is seeking visitors from China, the far East and Latin America; is planning a school of hospitality using international expertise to improve training and service levels; and is exploring many other possibilities that will appeal to the new traveller.

This is the precise moment at which the industry across the region and government should be undertaking some soul searching about what it offers and looking at its shortcomings and identifying how it might take advantage of the global upturn when it occurs.

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