The Caribbean’s Trav­el & Tourism sec­tor is re­cov­er­ing at a faster rate than any oth­er re­gion in the world, ac­cord­ing to new re­search from the World Trav­el & Tourism Coun­cil (WTTC).

The WTTC said that Caribbean’s Trav­el & Tourism con­tri­bu­tion to GDP is ex­pect­ed to rise more than 47 per cent this year, com­pared to just 30.7 per cent glob­al­ly.

WTTC, which rep­re­sents the glob­al Trav­el & Tourism pri­vate sec­tor, said the re­cov­ery of the sec­tor glob­al­ly has been hin­dered by the lack of in­ter­na­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion, se­vere trav­el re­stric­tions and slow­er vac­ci­na­tion rates.

How­ev­er, the Caribbean is now ben­e­fit­ing from more re­laxed re­stric­tions around the world and low in­fec­tion rates, which is in turn boost­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el spend and aid­ing the re­gion’s swift eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

“While the glob­al econ­o­my is set to re­ceive a mod­est 30.7 per cent year on year in­crease from Trav­el & Tourism in 2021, rep­re­sent­ing USD 1.4 tril­lion and is main­ly dri­ven by do­mes­tic spend­ing, the Caribbean re­gion can ex­pect a year-on-year in­crease of 47.3 per cent, rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of near­ly USD 12 bil­lion, dri­ven by both in­ter­na­tion­al and do­mes­tic trav­el spend,” the WTTC stat­ed.

“How­ev­er, while the Caribbean is re­cov­er­ing faster than oth­er re­gions, this is still be­low its per­for­mance in 2019, a record year for the sec­tor, where Trav­el & Tourism rep­re­sent­ed more than 14 per cent of the re­gion’s GDP con­tribut­ing more than USD 58 bil­lion to its econ­o­my,” it stat­ed.

Ju­lia Simp­son, WTTC Pres­i­dent & CEO said: “Last year, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic stole al­most a quar­ter of all Trav­el & Tourism jobs from the re­gion but due to a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in in­ter­na­tion­al and do­mes­tic spend, both jobs and GDP are on the rise.”

In re­sponse Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell said:

“Re­call that in, T&T, fol­low­ing lock downs across the world rel­a­tive to the move­ment of peo­ple - er­go, the vir­tu­al shut down of the trav­el and tourism in­dus­try, close to $15 bil­lion of in­di­rect con­tri­bu­tion by the trav­el and tourism to GDP was wiped out; close to 34,000 jobs were ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed.”

Mitchell said every des­ti­na­tion in the world with a trav­el and tourism sec­tor has seen such a neg­a­tive im­pact to its GDP on ac­count of the pan­dem­ic.

“So yes, it stands to rea­son that the re-start, the re­open­ing of the trav­el and tourism sec­tors will again be­gin to fill the eco­nom­ic val­ue gap caused by the pan­dem­ic. Thank­ful­ly for us in T&T, we have had oth­er sec­tors, the en­er­gy sec­tor, the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, and the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor that con­tin­ued to em­ploy per­sons and pro­duce dur­ing this dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od,” he said.

“We look for­ward and in do­ing so, pre­pare our­selves for the safe re­open­ing and restart of trav­el and tourism where jobs can be added and busi­ness­es in those sec­tors flour­ish again,” Mitchell said