The surfeit of crime that is currently affecting some Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries is doing nothing to stem the flow of extra regional visitors who have always favoured this part of the world as destinations for reflection and relaxation. Visitors’ preference for favouring the Caribbean, as against other parts of the world where serious crime receives much more widespread media exposure is, reportedly, one of the revelations culled from a MasterCard survey at the Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Montego Bay, Jamaica, earlier this week.
The survey which, while, reportedly conceding that there are crime challenges confronting some Caribbean countries, asserts that this is doing little to keep extra regional visitors away from this part of the world. Its revelation that over 80 per cent of tourists visiting the region usually feel safe here was made public several days ago by Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association President Nicola Madden-Greig at the CHTA’s 42nd Marketplace in Montego Bay.
While the news that crime in the Caribbean is, seemingly, doing little to keep extra regional visitors away from this part of the world, this may come as a surprise to residents of some countries in the region who see the failure of the authorities to roll back various types of criminal activity as one the more serious challenges confronting a law enforcement in some CARICOM states.
The report on Madden-Grieg’s presentation quotes the CHTA official as saying that while “we (the Caribbean) do have some challenges domestically, we can say that in terms of the impact on visitors to the region, it is negligible. We do have incidents from time to time but with the over 30 million visitors that we have to the Caribbean region, the impact in terms of safety and security is less than 0.0001 per cent. So I think we are doing extremely well.”
Coming a matter of days before the start of the 2024 Cricket World Cup Tourna-ment where the various matches will take extra-regional visitors to various CARICOM countries, Madden-Grieg’s comment may well be seen in some quarters as designed specifically to ensure that crime concerns do nothing to affect the staging of the 2024 Cricket World Cup, particularly the reported US$300 million in earnings which the region will reportedly receive from staging matches.
The remarks from the CHTA official came just days before throngs of cricket-lovers from across the region and from various other cricket-crazy jurisdictions make their presence felt at playing venues and thereafter, in thousands of instances, to venues in the respective Caribbean countries where events that have been months in planning will be staged to attract visitors.
In some Caribbean countries, more than others, the 2024 Cricket World Cup and the attendant arrival of thousands of cricket lovers here from across the globe has given rise the view that the advent of the Cricket World Cup at a time of demanding socio-economic challenges increases the risks associated with criminal activity exploiting the voids that patently exist in the policing regimes in some countries in the region. Here, it can be argued that the CHTA official is simply seeking to put a ‘brave face’ on a challenging situation, given the economic importance to the region of hosting a CWC 2024 that does not leave behind a degraded global image of the Caribbean as a safe place for visitors.
