The resurgent trend in the Caribbean’s tourism industry may turn out to be a mixed blessing for the region as increasing numbers of visitor arrivals spur greater demand for imported foods to cater to their tastes.
While regional governments spent much of last year contemplating ways of cutting a 2009 food import bill estimated at more than US$3 billion, a January 2011 report published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) indicates that Caribbean agricultural imports from the US rose by a further 5 per cent last year as the region’s tourist industry moved to accommodate the tastes of visitors from the US. The report, titled ‘Tourism Increasing Caribbean Demand for US Foods’ states that the increase in Caribbean food imports from the US was reflected “both in terms of volume and value.”
While, according to the report, the level of overall increase in agricultural imports into the region is relatively unchanged compared with 2009, Caribbean governments are likely to treat the news as an indication of a lack of any real success in realizing their hoped-for decrease in food imports to allow for the expansion of the region’s agricultural sector. Equally worrying to a region which, last year, spent much time discussing heightened intra-regional collaboration in agricultural production is the report’s assertion that visitor arrivals from the USA is “on the rise,” indicating that food imports from that country could take a further upward turn this year.
The USDA report notes that while food imports into the Caribbean tend to be stable, “tourism, for one, has an impact on food imports in the Caribbean, perhaps more so than in any other region of the world. When tourist inflows increase, a domino effect takes place across the small, service-oriented economies of the region. Not only do more tourists equate to more food demand by the tourists themselves, but they also generate greater economic activity throughout the islands, increasing the purchasing power of the 3.8 million local inhabitants in the process.”
And according to the report the “correlation between tourism and food imports is especially significant for the United States, which supplies over 50 per cent of the tourists to the Caribbean and has an estimated 58 per cent share of the Caribbean market for imported agricultural products. The current tourist-driven demand for US food imports in the Caribbean, the report says, is consistent with five years of double digit growth in US consumer goods exports to the region interrupted only by a slumping world economy in 2009 which reduced tourist inflows to the Caribbean and cut US food imports to the region to 4.8 per cent. The report says that the United States, which accounts for approximately 52 per cent of stop over tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, is seeing economic conditions slowly improve. “US tourists are beginning to travel to nearby Caribbean destinations in greater numbers,” the report says. There are also indications that Caribbean tourism is beginning the turn the corner. After coming to a near standstill in 2008 and 2009, construction projects are showing signs of regaining traction.”
The report names St Lucia, Barbados and the Turks and Caicos Islands as countries in the region where a resurgence in the building sector signals a resurgence in the tourist industry and cites St Vincent and the Grenadines’ $240 million airport as an initiative designed to “attract new hotel investment and greatly boost tourism revenues.”
Other projects cited in the report as indicators of the resurgence of tourism in the region are the proposed development of 24 new Wendy’s restaurants in Trinidad and Tobago and other regional markets over the next ten years and the commencement of operations by Air One, a new Barbados-based regional airline “in the short term.”
Regional experts have argued that food imports for tourist consumption not only represent loss of foreign exchange but also loss of lucrative intra-regional markets for private farmers in the region. Additionally, the view has also been expressed that tourist food imports also translate into a loss of opportunity to expand, diversify and modernize the region’s food processing sector.
While US agricultural imports into Guyana to cater to tourist tastes are likely to be minimal compared with other territories in the region, news that the Caribbean’s agricultural imports from the US are likely to be boosted by increased numbers of visitor arrivals is likely to be met with a fair measure of disappointment since the government here has been leading the charge for regional food security and for the shoring up of the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) agricultural sector.
The regional debate on food security has been led largely by President Bharrat Jagdeo who has sought to attract regional and extra-regional investors into the country to pursue mega-farm initiatives including projects that embrace the existing farming community. Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud has said that his ministry is pushing for crop insurance facilities for local agricultural projects as a means of attracting more private sector investment in the sector.
