An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Re­port­ing from St John’s An­tigua

T&T re­mains one of the Caribbean’s strongest re­gion­al tourism mar­kets de­spite eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, ris­ing crime con­cerns and for­eign ex­change short­ages, a top tourism of­fi­cial from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da said, while warn­ing that es­ca­lat­ing fu­el prices could soon place pres­sure on re­gion­al air­fares and air­lift.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day at the 44th edi­tion of the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­ket­place in An­tigua, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Tourism Min­is­ter Charles Fer­nan­dez said Trinida­di­ans con­tin­ue trav­el­ling across the re­gion even amid mount­ing do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic pres­sures.

“T&T is one of the largest source mar­kets in the re­gion. With all the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges that the is­land is fac­ing, what hap­pened to Trinidad to­day? And did you ever no­tice any drop off in the num­ber of Trinida­di­ans who are com­ing to the is­land? So we’re very hap­py about that.”

Fer­nan­dez cred­it­ed LI­AT for help­ing sus­tain re­gion­al move­ment and said An­tigua and Bar­bu­da is po­si­tion­ing it­self as an al­ter­na­tive Caribbean get­away for Trinida­di­ans who tra­di­tion­al­ly va­ca­tioned in Bar­ba­dos.

“We would like to think now that they would look at some new des­ti­na­tion. And of course, An­tigua is some­thing that has so much to of­fer.”

He point­ed to year-round events, in­clud­ing culi­nary month, art week, sail­ing week and crick­et as part of ef­forts to re­duce sea­son­al tourism slow­downs.

Fu­el costs and air­line pric­ing, how­ev­er, re­main a con­cern for Caribbean tourism of­fi­cials fol­low­ing ten­sions in the Mid­dle East and wider un­cer­tain­ty in the avi­a­tion sec­tor.

Fer­nan­dez said in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines are al­ready re­view­ing pric­ing struc­tures.

“I know that in terms of the in­ter­na­tion­al car­ri­ers, they are now look­ing to see what they can do in terms of pric­ing, prob­a­bly from next month. So we are on­ly hop­ing that what is hap­pen­ing in the Mid­dle East will calm down and set­tle down so that the prices can come back down to a lev­el where we con­tin­ue to see a price that we are able to trav­el with, as we did six months ago.”

He in­di­cat­ed that some Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries may still have room to cush­ion the im­pact of re­gion­al fu­el costs through pol­i­cy mea­sures.

Fer­nan­dez al­so de­fend­ed gov­ern­ment sup­port for re­gion­al air­lines, say­ing prof­itabil­i­ty with­out state back­ing would be dif­fi­cult.

“I be­lieve that any re­gion­al car­ri­er must have a gov­ern­ment sub­sidy for it to work be­cause of the lo­gis­tics of it, the short take­off and land­ing, the fact that we trav­el over the sea all the time, and salt air.”

He said Caribbean tourism min­is­ters are dis­cussing a re­turn toseam­less re­gion­al trav­el arrange­ments sim­i­lar to those used dur­ing the Crick­et World Cup.