BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jul 03 2015 – Outgoing Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chairman, Perry Christie, Thursday called on his regional colleagues to seriously re-examine the role the tourism sector could play in the development of the region.
Addressing the opening of the 36th annual summit of regional leaders here, Christie, the prime minister of the Bahamas, said that for some, tourism may be redolent of a part of the region’s history that “we would want to keep barricaded.
“For most of our countries, tourism is the largest earner of foreign exchange. For most of our countries, tourism is the largest employer. For all of our countries tourism absorbs the broadest range of skills of any economic sector. For all of our countries, tourism is the one sector for which there is no such thing as a jobless recovery.
“The very nature of tourism requires more people to be hired with increasing number of visitors. If unemployment especially youth unemployment is the scourge of our times, there appears to be no better economic sector for us to embrace in leading us closer to the promises that we have made to our lands.”
Christie said he had come to this view not only because of the intrinsic benefits that tourism delivers.
“I also come to this view because I have become convinced that when we look at the world today and at the various global trading blocs that have been formed and when we examine the various initiatives being pursued by CARICOM, it seems to me that the one natural bloc from which our CARICOM nations have much to gain is the God given bloc accorded us by having within the Caribbean the most salubrious conditions for existence on our planet.”
Prime Minister Christie said that he is convinced that tourism, the largest part of the collective economies and, in most cases, the largest part of individual economies deserves much more attention at the meetings of regional leaders.
