ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC - Caribbean tourism ministers say they have developed a strategy to deal with the energy crisis and its potentially crippling impact on regional tourism.

Eighteen of them emerged from a one-day emergency meeting late Thursday with a plan to set up several committees to deal with four critical areas – marketing the region, financial guarantees for airlines, issues concerning regional carriers, and hubs.

Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) Chairman and St. Lucia’s Tourism Minister Allen Chastanet, who called the meeting, said that topping the list of priorities would be addressing the significant reduction in airlift through Puerto Rico which is a critical bridge to the lucrative United States market.  

“The Puerto Rico hub is very critical to this region not only for the airlift to land-based properties, but clearly the potential implications it may have on our cruise sector as well,” he said.

He told reporters that CTO executive board members would travel to San Juan next week to discuss the issue with authorities there.

Chastanet also said that the four sub-committees would be led by ministers from Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Cayman Islands and Jamaica.

The committee on hubs will be headed by Barbados’ Minister of International Transport John Boyce, while his St.Kitts-Nevis counterpart Ricky Skerrit will chair the committee responsible for examining revenue guarantees for airlines.

The Cayman Islands Tourism Minister Charles Clifford will head the committee to look at a way forward for regional carriers, while the committee to market the region, especially to emerging markets in Europe and Latin America, will be chaired by Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett.

Chastanet said the committees were all expected to meet ahead of the Caribbean Tourism Summit to be held in Washington DC next month.

“Each of the sub-committees would have met and would have brought a work programme to the meeting in Washington DC for discussion and for ratification. It is anticipated that coming out of that meeting that we would have a very strong action plan in place which we will then present to the heads of government meeting which will taking place here in Antigua in July,” he said.

Antigua’s Tourism Minister Harold Lovell, who is the CTO’s First Vice Chairman, said Thursday’s meeting was a proactive step on the part of the organisation’s executive.

“The fact is we cannot sit by in the face of the current events and do nothing. This is a first step; it’s not the last step but I think it positions us and we are able to devise the solutions and come up with the answers to the problems,” he said.

In addition to establishing the special committees, the CTO hopes to move swiftly with plans to meet with major tourism stakeholders like the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA).

The ministers also took a decision to commission a study on oil futures to forecast oil prices so that effective plans can be put in place.

He said he was confident that these measures would help stay the growing crisis.

“These are not new issues for us so it’s not a matter of reinventing the wheel; it’s a matter of putting these things in the context of the today’s world,” Chastanet said.

“If, in fact, the price of oil continues to increase...we’re going to have an even bigger crisis on our hands and the committees are ready to look at those specific areas and relate it back to what the price of fuel is and also what might potentially happen with US carriers,” he added.

CMC/ak/dmb/pr/08