NEW YORK, Jun 4, CMC – A senior official of the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) today warned that the Caribbean “is barely keeping its head above water” amid predictions that the sector will record a slight increase in tourist arrivals in 2013.
CTO Director of Research and Information Technology, Winfield Griffith, told a workshop that forms part of the Caribbean Week activities here, that the figures show the region did not outperform areas such as Asia and the Pacific last year.
He said overall, worldwide, there had been a 3.8 per cent increase in visitor arrivals in 2012 and that “Asia and the Pacific, they were ahead of Africa slightly and the Caribbean followed in third position”.
He said five years ago, the Middle East, which was a major competitor to the Caribbean and other destinations “had fallen back due to what is happening in those areas.
‘We know that these areas are quite politically unstable and it reflects in their numbers,” he said.
But Griffith told the workshop attended by representatives from the National Trust Offices (NTO’s), the Caribbean was losing its “a bit of market share” with regards to stay over arrivals even when the figures were showing an increase globally.
