Caribbean Islands Panel

Transcript

Peter:

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone that is watching today. We're very pleased to have at this event, three of our leaders in the Caribbean. It's great to see that we have government present as well as airlines. CAPA, again, thank you for the opportunity to showcasing this opportunity, the Caribbean. Our three panelists today are first of all, Senator Lisa Cummings, who is the Barbados Minister of Transport and International Transport. Thank you very much for joining us. Tracy Cooper, Managing Director and CEO of Bahamas airways and Trevor Sandler, the CEO of InterCaribbean Airlines.

Hello, everyone. Good to see you. I would like to have seen you all in person, but this is the new norm of Zoom and Teams. Hopefully, in a very short timeframe, as more vaccines are given to our citizens in the region, we're able to reopen borders and get together and start planning out the landscape for air transport and tourism in our region. I would like to give a little bit information to the audience in terms of the importance that air transport brings to the Caribbean.

The Caribbean, are island states that don't have the luxury of mainland continents, of roads, and train systems. We're highly dependent on air travel for connectivity within the region, within the island states, as well as connecting to North America, Europe and Latin America. The air travel industry to the region provides roughly $27 billion in tourism on Europe and the basis was pre COVID. Approximately $36 billion in GDP contribution, 1.6 million jobs, so almost 14% of the travel of Caribbean economy. Probably there's no other region in the world that is so heavily dependent on air travel for social and economic reasons than the Caribbean.

The Caribbean, before COVID was in a state of very popular more connectivity than ever before in 2019. We ended the year in 2019 with over 540 city-pair connections to all parts of the world from the Caribbean. Since then, since COVID hit us, we lost about 423 of those city-pairs that have not been recuperated. We're currently around 315.

So let me just start with Minister from your perspective, running the travel side where connectivity is so important for Barbados and the Caribbean, regional global connectivity, these losses, that has huge social and economic consequences, as well as health consequences because of COVID. What has [inaudible 00:03:45] to combat these shortfalls? And what is the government doing to try to re-establish connectivity to the islands?

Senator Lisa Cummings:

So I think that the first thing is that I think this is such an important conversation for all of us to be having at this time. I think we're constantly dealing with scenarios where countries that are tourism-dependent that I think The Inter-American Development Bank had an important seminal body of work, which spoke about the importance of tourism, dependent economies and the importance of us treating to things like vaccinations, connectivity issues, and so on as critical development issues for us.

Certainly, as we look at what has happened with our international source markets, and therefore without what has happened to our domestic markets and inter-regional travel, the issues are significant. What is Barbados done? Barbados has one, maintained a significant and an ongoing conversation with all of our air partners. So whether it is with the tour operators in our UK and our American markets, and if he has been with our air travel partners, in our bond markets, we've done that. In the Caribbean region, we've also done the same thing. What have we been looking at so far? We've been looking at what support measures are necessary for the industry overall, at all levels. At a macro level, at the micro level. How do we provide support to our employees and our workforce who are functioning in the area? That's really going to be critical part of the conversation.

And then ultimately, what we are doing is a combination of short range and medium range and long range planning. So we are in a position to be able to mitigate for any given scenario, but that's just a high level view. I'll get into a little bit more specifics over time.

Peter:

Trevor, to you, your airline has a huge inter-regional connectivity within, not only the Caribbean, but also the western Caribbean. And all the restrictions and measures that governments have taken, have implemented over these last several months, obviously is having an impact on connectivity, is having an impact on how you travel, the different bio-safety measures that have taking place. And this is causing huge amounts of havoc and operational inefficiencies. When you talk to your counterparts and talk to government within a different island states, what are you noticing that's being done correctly, and what's not being done correctly, that it's really stampeding us from [inaudible 00:06:23] to something close to what we had in 2019?

Trevor Sandler:

We're a little over a year now since COVID took over our lives and in the space of roughly one week, most every country in the Caribbean was quickly closed down. A year ago, it almost seems comical for us to consider that two weeks, everyone will close down and this great virus was going to go away. Of course, we quickly learned that it's not going away anywhere anytime soon. And at that moment, what we had was really each country adopting its own internal responses to the COVID event. And it's only when we fast forward by some months do we come to the point where each country started to adopt its own particular protocols for opening. And this is where, across the Caribbean, we've seen a complete mixture of requirements from COVID test before you come in, COVID when you arrive, COVID so many days later. At one point, there was even a COVID for you to leave one of the countries we serve.

So, the economic cost of all of these desires are easy to put upon the customer, but the reality is that several $100 for every traveler for all of these extra elements aside from quarantining in specific locations, meant the bottom basically fell out. So while we have countries that opened, we quickly rolled back into some form of semi-closure. So, it's not been easy, and what it has illustrated is each country is adopting its own set of measures, not necessarily consulting with neighboring countries where travel may occur. And so, you have a very disjointed aspect of how does this work for a traveler? Notwithstanding changes are made very quickly. So you're left in this place of not actually knowing what am I supposed to do in order to enter which country?

And so, in the case of Barbados, as an example, where we entered into the market in August last year, as the reintroduction of new protocols came along, the business traveler basically fell away. There was no way for the business person to make a one or two-day trip without quarantining for five to seven days where that person was going and then similarly quarantining to come back home, so the investment is just extraordinary. And so, business travel is basically fallen away. So it's just the VFR traffic who wants to visit and those who have a long haul trip that they can afford the additional quarantine, certainly in the early days and responses.

Peter:

Tracy to you, [inaudible 00:09:56] talking about in terms of some of the difficulties, your country, your airline's based in the Bahamas where the government has come out, and it's a first country in the Caribbean that basically accepts a vaccination certificate. Certainly, the proximity to U.S. and the number of vaccines that are being given here in the United States, over 100 million people already have this second dosage. But when you go out through the different parts of the region, that's not the case. You have different measures that are being implemented, that are be required from PCR to antigen, in some cases, you have a struggle with say quarantines and so on.

How difficult is that for the industry? One for the airline to operate efficiently, two to bring public confidence where people will begin to get back on airplanes and start traveling to the region. As Trevor said, once you implement some of these measures, you're sure the business traveler just go away. As we tried to recuperate, particularly bringing friends and family vacationers, is the measures that Bahamas implemented with the vaccine the right way to go, or do we need a balanced approach in terms of between vaccinations, antigen test, PCR, what's your take on this?

Tracy Cooper:

Well, Peter, one thing I could say is that with the travel community, and obviously the Bahamas is a tourism sport. So the hotel stakeholders we're very much appreciative to the government for working with us and listening to us as we implemented this vaccination process. Reality is that the Bahamas is what? About 50 miles closest point of the U.S. We're closest offshore nation to the United States. 80%, more of our tourism product come from the U.S. With the U.S. being very aggressive with their vaccination process, it is only wise of us to follow that protocol that the government enabled. Related to how the rest of the Caribbean have implemented as travel, travel set it very nicely, that according to where you go, you almost have a different approach. And so, we fly to one country that requires a COVID vaccine testing protocol before you reach, it requires it when you reach, it requires even a quarantine after you reach, and still you could only fly there once every 14 days. Right?

So we recognize, every country is unique within the Caribbean, and they have their own issues. But if we would have been more in using CARICOM, and probably using our various team method of how this is approaching and getting into countries, would make it simpler for the wider global community to understand what and how it is to get in and around each of those countries.

It is very difficult for you to be an individual and trying to figure out how to get into each and every one of these countries. It's difficult for us as aviation or airline executives. And so, we're constantly changing and trying to adjust as to what is happening, actually, on a daily basis. And I could tell you in 2002 and 2020, if anybody was trying to figure this all out, they'd recognize that it was a big issue.

Peter:

Thank you, Tracy. Minister, in your case, you've been extremely active as Minister of Tourism in a very proactive country like Barbados, trying to always be at the forefront, trying to do the right thing for travel and tourism, but at the same time safeguard your citizens from COVID. And that's a very tricky balance where you in your drive, you're trying to stimulate that traffic that you've lost, bring confidence, but at the same time, trying to coordinate with your government in terms of what's practical, what's safe to safeguard the health of your population.

What is your government doing that others may not, and what better coordination could take place between intra regional coordination? Tracy was talking about CARICOM and other organizations. What is your perspective on what you're doing locally in your country to try to have that balance, but also what more needs to be done throughout the entire region, so we can have a more balanced approach and we don't have different procedures and measures being implemented in different parts of the Caribbean?

Senator Lisa Cummings:

Thanks for that, Peter. I think it's a great question. And what's important for us is to have context. So across Europe, major economies, major source markets, major travel economies as well, there are no uniform risk requirements across Europe for entry. And largely, that is driven by the same factors that prevent them from being universal requirements in the Caribbean countries. And that means that you have countries with different hospital capacity, countries with different testing capabilities, you certainly are seeing different countries across the Caribbean region having different vaccination levels. And so, the capacity for each country to be able to absorb is entirely different from country to country, not just in the Caribbean, but across the globe and across other regional [inaudible 00:15:42] blocks.

And so, I'm not necessarily saying that the Caribbean countries could not or should not have better coordination mechanisms, but I'm saying that we're not dissimilar from any other region of the world, where each country has had to make a individual decision based on their own unique circumstances. Equally so, I think among those unique circumstances, are the issues of population density. Barbados is in the top 10 most densely populated countries in the world. That's not a distinction that any other Caribbean country has.

And so, the ability for one COVID case to be imported into a country is going to have an entirely different impact on Barbados than it may on a country that has a larger expanse, less spread out or more spread out population, and multiple islands, for example, where you can move. And so, each country is going to have to find a way to deal with its own unique circumstances. But that does not preclude us from cooperating. And I think this is where a lot of the coordination could come.

Barbados has been having a global conversation around issues like vaccine equity. Every single country wants to be able to have high numbers of vaccinations available to our citizens. But we're also the countries that are most tourism-dependent, but also struggling to find and procure vaccines on the global market, even on a commercial basis. And that makes us more vulnerable. We're also the countries that are most vulnerable to the combination of the COVID pandemic as a result of our relationship with our tourism. But also, more recently, you saw St. Vincent having a volcano erupting there, which also affected Barbados.

And so, that brings into very stark, visual context, the issue of pandemic preparedness and resilience, but also disaster preparedness and resilience all coinciding in single countries. And so, coordination has to be around proactive and reactive measures, in the case of COVID-19 [inaudible 00:17:44] we're getting the industry to resume. It has to also be about the identification of minimum standards even where there's not necessarily an agreement on what all of the measures will be. And it also has to be an agreement in principle on how to balance that critical element that Trevor made reference to about quarantining and testing so that there is some type of uniformity.

Barbados, for example, does not accept rapid tests on arrival in Barbados, largely because we follow the science and the World Health Organization that says the efficacy rate, and the specificity rates matter. And ultimately, that's where we have gone, but we have to be able to have access to the technology and the testing resources that allow us to access newer tests that are coming out on the market with higher levels of specificity, higher levels of precision. In real-time, that will allow us to make the travel industry more viable, and to create that balance between public health and travel and getting our industry restarted.

So those are some of the things that I would suggest. I think those four main things initially can be the focus of our coordination mechanisms.

Peter:

Trevor, I see you nodding, is that something that you agree to?

Trevor Sandler:

Yes.

Peter:

What the minister is saying?

Trevor Sandler:

I think it's always easy for any of us to sit back at this stage and look at the would have, could have, should have aspects of what has taken place, but I think the world has had a year's worth of lessons here. Certainly, within our region, each country has definitely had its share of lessons and learnings, and as Minister mentioned, and I haven't considered the very point with respect to population density, I think that's an important element that maybe escaped my own thinking. But it I think, if we come past this moment here, not if, when we come past this moment, an opportunity for governments to sit down, look at some of those lessons learned, maybe take a takeaway in terms of a roadmap that would help allow each country to take a decision on a map, where might it fit into some of these elements and perhaps better prepare all of us for what the future might hold.

Peter:

Tracy, to you, in terms of the summer season coming our way. And we read in the newspapers, the recovery for the U.S. airlines domestically looks very good this summer, pretty close to almost pre COVID numbers. So it's going to be a very strong domestic summer for the U.S., Pacific Caribbean and Mexico in that. How is it looking for Bahamasair from your perspective, now that most of the population, the travelers is that you'll have to the Bahamas is going to be pretty much U.S. centric. Maybe a little bit of Canadian, some British, but how's your focus? Do you see your airline coming back to pre COVID times within the summer, or is it going to take you a little bit more? Are you reshuffling or refocusing what your strategy is looking towards for the summer season?

Tracy Cooper:

Peter, as with most airlines during 2020, Bahamasair had to take a serious look at its operations because before 2020, we were always concentrating on revenue concerns. We always thought we could outgrow and outpace, just simply put on more seats and everything will be fine. In 2020, we had to relook at this and re refocus ourselves more on a costs concern. And we divested ourselves of two of our airplanes. We brought in one right before the COVID, so it's really just one plane out. But we know that we will not be up to the levels pre COVID.

Now, the whole thing with this is, really it's the demand for the seats. The U.S. domestic market has grown a bit or come back a bit. Related to traveling outside of the U.S., that has been a little slower. So places like the Bahamas and all the rest, we just starting to see a pickup of these demands.

But for Bahamasair in particular, we have seen some resurgence. And that is good for us. We've seen resurgence both in the international and domestic because the testing regimen and as well as the new procedures that the government is implementing, it's not just for coming into the Bahamas, but also traveling in and around the Bahamas. So, I think at the end of 2020, we were at about 30% of our frequency rotations in relations to pre COVID. Presently, right now, going into summer, we're going to be around 65%. So we're not going to be 100%, but the growth is encouraging, and we think that that's fine. We're in line with what the aviation industry is projecting. And I think we'll be alright.

Peter:

Minister from years perspective, as we are trying to recuperate for the summer and look at the opportunities based on on what's out there, what the landscape looks like, is your government looking at something similar to what the Bahamasair is in terms of giving more agility, accessibility to those who are vaccinated to come in and not have to go through some of the protocols that others who may not be vaccinated have to go through, particularly as more Americans increase the number of vaccinations?

Senator Lisa Cummings:

Absolutely. Interestingly, on Saturday, May 9, we reopened with our new vaccinated protocols. And so, we normally would have various iterations of our various travel protocols. But our new protocols would be for the first time, outlining what is required for travel into Barbados for vaccinated guests. And that very much does prioritize U.S. travel. Because obviously, as we know the challenges that exists with other markets, major source markets, in particular with outbound travel. And so, those new challenges, those new protocols incorporate elements like pre-testing three days prior to arrival, you are tested on arrival at the airport, which diminishes the time that you then need to spend in quarantine. And so, within a period of no more than maybe 24 hours, you should be in a position whereby you can leave quarantine and go about your business and be integrated into the country very seamlessly.

Peter:

So based on what Minister Cummings has said about the summer season in terms of protocols and what's taking place in terms of to bring in more [inaudible 00:25:01] to passengers, I see from your route map background and behind you, you're very intra regionally connected and that's how your structure's set up. Have you seen like in other parts of the world, U.S. and parts of Europe where more people are traveling within the country, not so much internationally? Is this an opportunity that you see for the Caribbean, where more Caribbeans travel to neighboring Caribbean countries for tourism and travel than in the past where they may be coming from Miami or other parts of the U.S.? Is this an opportunity that finally, we begin to create a culture within the Caribbean to find out what the Caribbean's all about, to travel within neighboring countries? Do you see that happening?

Trevor Sandler:

Peter, I think the answer is, this is precisely what we've been working in building for the last seven plus years. We have a fleet of Embraer 120, 130-seat airplanes that have been the backbone of building this regional travel. But we candidly also arrived at the point where we just don't have enough seats. So part of our strategy is actually upgrading the type and the size of the airplanes we operate on this regional travel card. You mentioned earlier, 500 something city-pairs. In fact, pre COVID, we had 343 city-pairs that we serve between any one point, [inaudible 00:26:35] how many points could I get to. And with the introduction of service from Barbados, this increased while at the same time, we also don't have every city-pair we formally operated back connected yet, but as we move through this year, we certainly will restore those services.

And what is important about what we're doing is the trifecta of allowing the Caribbean person to travel, be it for visiting family, be it for business purposes, to another country that could be one or two stops, whatever it might actually take, by creating the reasonable frequency, we then enable the multi-island tourist traveler to then select the day of the week that suits them. So over the evolution of time, we've built this network that starts in Havana on the western side, now, over to Barbados, and in the news recently is our approval for Guyana. So it's just a matter of setting a date in coming into there. And we certainly fill in most everything in between, except presently, for the French Caribbean.

And so, it's very much about enabling that the Caribbean traveler can get around the Caribbean without having to come to Miami if you can, or going to Panama, if that's an option. And certainly, even that one is restricted in the COVID recovery moments too. So, we certainly play a vital and important part in providing connectivity. And certainly throughout this COVID window of restoration, we've seen enormous amounts of people who were literally connecting five, six, seven airlines where we fly in order to get to a point in the Caribbean. And it's quite incredible to look at some of those journeys, but it's born out of the realities that someone, for example, I want to get to the Bahamas, they're just not able to get there except to find a route to make a connection with us, and then we are the last mile of a very long journey, just based on the origin and the destination.

We think work, we've done, and there's still work to do, but it's certainly an important aspect for the Caribbean creating connectivity within the Caribbean, by the Caribbean and not relying on external sources.

Peter:

Tracy, you were nodding your head just a few minutes ago. You agree with Trevor that this is also an opportunity to enhance intra regional connectivity and have more of the Caribbean folks travel within their region?

Tracy Cooper:

There's no doubt about it. I was shaking my head because, for instance, some students were trying to get down to Cuba, and they were going all the way down to the Dominican Republic, taking two or three flights just to get someplace that would typically take them an hour and they'll be there. And we had persons, when the UK was opened, trying to get to the Bahamas, and had to go all the way down through Cuba, to catch our flights to get to the Bahamas.

Into Caribbean travel is becoming much more important than it was in the past. And this is because we're finding synergies between ourselves in the Caribbean, and persons and moving around. I was more saddened to see the plight of [Lia 00:30:29]. Hopefully, they'll be coming back a bit strong. But the need for getting from one destination to the next in the Caribbean without having to go outside of the Caribbean. Having to go to Miami, which is a common hub, really to get in and around the Caribbean has been a big thing.

And so, I applaud Trevor and [inaudible 00:30:55] for what they're doing. We're connecting to some of the nations. But as you know, we have our own challenges in the Bahamas, we got 700 plus islands of which to try and fly around. So, [inaudible 00:31:09] our travelers are doing within their means, we are likewise doing it within Bahamas but never leaving the Bahamas. But still that ability to get between the islands without having to pay so much and getting outside of the Caribbean, then come back into Caribbean is important.

I'd also like to add on to the fact that the complexities still though, in getting in and around the Caribbean, still is a bit much. You would have persons trying to figure out on the flight. Everybody's not well-versed in all of the criterions that each government will have. So we find ourselves as an airline, you'd have passengers show up to get on a flight to go somewhere, and then they don't understand just at that point, that they cannot get on the airplane because the requirements that they thought were in the Bahamas was similar to what was in Provo, someplace else, it's not the same.

And therefore, you'll find a lot of persons who have missed flights, who would have paid for a PCR test or a testing regime to get to one location, but then could not get into another. It was an expensive thing, it discouraged persons from traveling. It's one of the reasons why first your question, as to should we have something that is more coordinated, I think it's prevalent or relevant that we do this, so that for the sake of the travelers in and around the Caribbean, we can make it much easier.

Peter:

Thank you, and you're absolutely correct that standardization and cooperation and collaboration is so critical during this time. Particularly that we want to safeguard public safety, but also we want to bring public confidence back for them to get on airplanes and to begin to traveling. And that's been somewhat of a challenge because most folks are hesitant to get on airplanes at times, they don't want to leave their homes or go too far away. And when we have the unknowns, and we begin to see that policies are different in different places, that's discouraging folks from getting back on airplanes.

But at the same time, I think there's an opportunity, and Minister, we've talked about multi destination tourism for a long time in our region. And when we see travelers coming from the UK, from Germany, from the U.S., they usually go to one island, and they spend their week or their two weeks and then they go back home without really taking the advantage of maybe doing a 25-minute island hop between one island and the other, and really being able to see two great islands with different culture, diversity, and enjoying that opportunity. And in the past, it's always been the intra regional connectivity.

How do you see this? Talking to your peers in other islands in trying to promote more island hopping, more connectivity where the traveler to a region is not only seeing one country, but they're seeing multiple countries. And that's obviously giving more opportunities for more economic developing, more GDP contribution.

Senator Lisa Cummings:

I think that's really a critical issue that all of us have been speaking about certainly, in my own individual role as the Minister for Tourism and International Transport for Barbados, but equally, in my regional role as Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization. It is very much a conversation that we have been having. How do we treat to the question of multi destination marketing in first instance, where we are enabling the Caribbean and offering multiple destinations on a single itinerary, and then how do we layer on top of that? The capacity for airlift.

And obviously, I think Tracy mentioned earlier the unfortunate scenario of Lia, but we also have the fortunate entry into the market of the inter Caribbean as a partner. And when Trevor was just outlining the multiple stops and destinations along the journey, I think that's really a critical part of that. And we're very thankful for them having come to the market. So joint marketing of different destinations having the capacity to buy airlifts, come to different locations, but also a differentiation among the various products and experiences that are available in our destinations. This is very much that moment where, as we prioritize U.S. based travel and inter Caribbean travel as we seek to create market opportunities, while the rest of the world is dealing with a different set of issues. This is really that moment and that time.

Peter:

Trevor and Tracy, a question to you, I think we can all agree that in terms of connectivity from the U.S., parts of Europe to the Caribbean is quite good. Particularly before COVID, we had excellent connectivity, even from Latin America, Central America, we were seeing it enhanced. From your perspective, do we have enough intra regional connectivity in competition that will help governments stimulate that multi destination tourism? Do we have enough? Do we need more? Do we need more government support? Let me get your sense in terms of where we stand today, and what we need for the future.

Trevor Sandler:

Tracy you'd like to go first?

Tracy Cooper:

Okay. So when we're talking about intra regional, you're talking about several different elements. One is the demand and having the seats. The other is the affordability. We've had plenty conferences where we've spoken about each Caribbean nation having to be able to support itself, having its own taxation, and other fees that are related to travel. We've found that when you combine it as a holistic element, it becomes a bit pricey to move in and around the Caribbean. So, that is something that we still need to tackle as a tourism base, and in wanting to making sure that we could have different destination travels.

The other part of this is, and we continue to talk about this as we make reference to when we had the FIFA championship down in the Caribbean some years back, and we had the ability for the person to move into inter island without too much restrictions of having a country border protection as far as immigration and customs in each stop. And that worked well back then. That's something that we have to look at as far as implementing to better ourselves in the ease of movement for persons wanting to go to multiple destinations.

So you're talking about the demand, I think the demand is always there. Because the Minister and I talked about before the meeting, we think that this is the time that travel would have heightened, these are some of the best islands anywhere in the world. And so, we know that we have persons who are interested in coming and doing multiple stops, they want to see what the different cultures are, even between ourselves. But we need to help ourselves to make this a viable solution to somebody who has a limited amount of funds, but wants to move in around the Caribbean. So we have to deal with all of the elements to make this a workable solution.

Peter:

Trevor?

Trevor Sandler:

Let me just add to what Tracy is saying because taxation is obviously a big issue, but perhaps this is probably the moment when it's the most difficult to to embrace. But let me just share a story of connectivity in COVID times. We have a customer we've somewhat adopted, and this gentleman flew into Jamaica about a week before things closed down. And like most people you'd think, maybe they'd cut their journeys down and they go back home. But he was determined to keep traveling and keep waiting for each country to open one by one. So he would contact us, "When's this country opening? When's this country opening?" So, he would book a seat on our flights, and I think, we have maybe three places left, which he hasn't now flown to. And he's been traveling around the Caribbean for the last one year since his initial arrival at the COVID closed down. So he's a great example of someone who's determined to see the Caribbean, and it seems, practically, the whole Caribbean. So we've got to do more to encourage folks like this gentleman.

Peter:

Minister, you have been extremely proactive. We consider you one of our advocates, speaking on behalf of the industry, travel and tourism with governments around and you have an important role. And the issues that both, Tracy and Trevor have brought up in terms of affordability, in terms of taxes, charges, and then the great example about movement of people within countries in terms of considering them domestic flights rather than international, where you really cut down on time. You've heard me many times from an IR standpoint be very critical.

Now that we have COVID, and we're trying to get out, it's always an opportunity of how can we improve from what we had in the past? And how can we even become much more competitive because it is all going to be about cost, affordability, ease of travel, for the Caribbean to recuperate, particularly as travelers are more savvy, and they have opportunities to go elsewhere. What can you do on our behalf, on your behalf, as representing Barbados to convince other governments to become more competitive in costs, and to look at bringing down some of these barriers where it makes travel much easier within the islands?

Senator Lisa Cummings:

Let me start by making reference to what I consider to be a seminal period of time in the Caribbean country where I think Tracy made reference to, it was cricket the World Cup in 2000, where we had sunset legislation that allowed for people to enter one country and move seamlessly throughout the Caribbean. In multiple incarnations, that was relevant then, and I think it was one of the greatest travesties that actually came to an end, but we have sunset legislation, but it very much has to be relevant to now.

And I think the first step really has to be for us to look initially at what the primary benefits were of having that seamless inter-regional movement using the sense of legislation of the Cricket World Cup. I know it's not in the air travel industry, but what I can say to you is that I have already started working with my colleague, tourism ministers as it relates to the cruise industry to coordinating and harmonizing movement, because obviously, cruise ships function on multiple destinations already by definition. And so, it made it easier for us to start there, and then move ultimately into air travel. But that absolutely has to be a critical part of our conversation going forward in our books in order to enable movement throughout the region.

So the second part is what Trevor raised, which is specifically the issue of taxation. It is a bug-bearer each country across the region has seen air travel as a means of ensuring that there's some self-sufficiency in our airports and all the infrastructure that is required to support the industry. But I think there has to be a meaningful conversation as well about competitiveness.

So people will know, we have been modeling this certainly from a tourism standpoint. Travelers now, are looking for value for money, they have options of traveling, not necessarily in the Caribbean, but anywhere else, any of the sand destinations, where they're going to be able to get much on some of what they perceive to be the same things, although we know in the Caribbean is not going to be the same experiences as we're entirely different. But they don't know that unless they come here. And so, they're going to be looking at sand destinations elsewhere, where their costs are less expensive, their travel is easier. How do we then ensure that we're able to kickstart a meaningful and a sustainable restart to our tourism industry by looking at those perhaps uncomfortable issues around taxation around competitiveness?

But it also means that there has to be a discussion equally with the airlines around questions that are also uncomfortable like minimum revenue guarantees, and how they're treated to and whether or not governments should be supporting the operational side or if you should be moving towards models that treat to marketing behind the gateway that make the load capacities higher, and therefore everybody breaks even. So there are lots of uncomfortable conversations to go around. But I can commit that both at the level of the CTO, and with all of my partners in the region that along with IATA, all of you, that I'm going to be having those conversations.

And the final element that I want to raise and perhaps is a bit of a plug for you in terms of ease of travel especially in a COVID environment, as you know Barbados is currently piloting in partnership with IATA, the travel pass, and digitalization of travel when it does resume all across the region, is really a critical part of that ease of movement. And I'm looking forward to seeing it rolled out all across the region. I have given the commitment to my colleagues that I'm going to be introducing them to your team where they have not already met to see how we can get the IATA travel pass rolled out as an instrument for use across all of our airports in the region to facilitate vaccination and test information being shared in advance to travel.

Peter:

Minister, I think you've summed it up perfectly in terms of what we need to do as an industry. Trevor, Tracy, I don't know if you have any other last comments, but the government industry collaboration, the private sector, I think is so critical for us, not only to recuperate from COVID, but to be a competitive region in the future and give more social and economic well-being to the Caribbean states, which is so important. Anything closing from either one of you in terms of the government, public sector cooperation?

Trevor Sandler:

I would say from into Caribbean point of view, we've long enjoyed great relationships with the governments of the countries in which we operate and Minister as highlighted, I think, the deeper need to dig deeper and not to see each other at arm's length, but actually share the same table, sit and discuss the types of views that we're speaking of here today. And what is it that we can do collectively to move any monuments that get in our way of increasing the connectivity and obstacles to increasing airlift?

Tracy Cooper:

Well, for Bahamasair, I like to say, with some degree of relief that we don't have the same issues that Trevor and the others have because most of our flying is actually done in and around supporting all of the many islands we have within the Bahamas. So we're normally just dealing with one government. And then the others that we do fly into, we tend to have a good relationship with them. So we're okay as far as government relationship and interaction with the airline.

As you know, Bahamas is actually owned by the government of the Bahamas. So, that makes it a lot easier in dealing with governmental affairs. But as Trevor's saying, it is, but you have to have a good relationship with all, wherever you fly, to make this work. We fly into Cuba, so I enter Haiti, and you need to have a good relationship, there's no doubt about because each of them are unique in their own approach as to what they consider to be normalcy. And therefore, you just need to have that to be able to survive.

Peter:

Well, the 40 minutes have gone very, very quickly with this very excellent conversations and interactions. Minister, thank you for your time, we will certainly be calling on you as we've done in the past. You are one of our true advocates, as I've mentioned, leaders. And as you mentioned, I think we have a great opportunity from the government and from the private sector to really take the opportunity, take the bull by the horns, as many say, and to position the region in a much better place than we were before. So everyone, [inaudible 00:47:59] by a high value proposition to our customers.

Trevor and Tracy, thank you, as always, for your support, much success. We also think there's great opportunities from that side of the business, and we just need to continue pushing on. So thank you to the three of you for your time today, and to CAPA for giving us the opportunity and the platform to talk about the Caribbean. Thank you to all.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.