The Caribbean Market - Where to next for regional travel and tourism?

The Caribbean is one of the premier global tourism destinations, and the region has enjoyed an enviable bounce-back in recent years with arrivals passing pre-pandemic levels in many markets. While travel demand generally remains strong, largely thanks to sustained outbound travel from the US, indicators are emerging that growth is decelerating and outlooks are diverging between individual country markets. This session will examine key issues, opportunities and trends for the regional travel and tourism sector, including:

• Was the strength of the post-pandemic tourism surge a temporary phenomenon or will tourism-dependent economies be able to sustain recent volumes of arrivals?

• How are Caribbean destinations working to widen their appeal outside of traditional North American and European source markets? What are the opportunities for developing arrivals from markets in Central and Latin America?

• Given that tourist arrivals are heavily influenced by ease of access, what are the best avenues to enhance direct air connectivity and frequency levels?

• With intra-regional travel remaining fragmented, capacity-limited and expensive, are there prospects for revitalising the local air travel market and developing true regional travel hubs?