His Excellency President Dr Irfaan Ali advocated for a bold regional tourism vision to ensure the long-term viability and competitiveness of tourism in the Caribbean.

Speaking to regional tourism stakeholders at the official launch of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) State of the Tourism Industry Conference earlier today at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Georgetown, the President called for the region to fundamentally change the way it approaches investment, connectivity, technology and regional cooperation.

He warned that the Caribbean could no longer rely solely on its natural beauty and must continuously enhance its tourism product to remain competitive in an increasingly demanding global market.

Central to his vision is greater regional connectivity, particularly through integrated transport infrastructure that would allow visitors to move more easily between Caribbean destinations, alongside greater tourism collaboration to package the diversity that exists across the region.

He argued that the Caribbean could not continue to develop tourism destinations in isolation, pointing to the emergence of interconnected tourism ecosystems in the Middle East, Latin America and Europe.

“The only thing that can take us forward by scale is integrated infrastructure, starting with an integrated transport system.”

President Ali also warned that the region was facing growing competition from destinations investing heavily in luxury hospitality, entertainment, sporting events, digital tourism and infrastructure.

“We have to be futuristic. We gotta bite the bullet at some point,” he said, stressing that the region could no longer afford complacency.

“We can no longer plan in cycle. You have to plan ahead of time, and we can only do so together.”

He pointed to the potential for greater regional cooperation to attract and host major global events, arguing that Caribbean countries could collectively identify events they want to bring to the region and build the infrastructure needed to support them.

The President also urged the Caribbean to embrace artificial intelligence, digital tourism and cybersecurity, while calling for greater integration of regional supply chains, workforce development and investment.

He stressed that resilience must also be built into tourism projects from the outset, including disaster preparedness, business continuity, resilience financing and insurance.

President Ali said the Caribbean’s tourism industry had demonstrated its resilience following the COVID-19 pandemic, but argued that this resilience must now be reinforced by infrastructure, investment, partnerships and strategy.

“The future is going to be completely different…for tourism to succeed, compete, and stay alive in this region, we have to scale up our thinking, scale up our infrastructure, scale up our commitment, and for people within the region, we need to scale up our approach.”