BUOYED by data showing an already “robust demand for the Caribbean” ahead of the 2022 season, president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), Nicola Madden-Greig is confident the region will experience a great summer.
“We are really excited to see that Caribbean tourism is recovering much faster than it had been anticipated originally, and we are seeing that we are one of the second-fastest recovering globally. We are still behind our 2019 peak year by some 36.1 per cent but, in terms of our contribution to GDP for 2021, we are up 36.6 per cent over 2020,” she said during a CHTA industry performance and outlook briefing on Thursday.
She was referencing data provided by CHTA’s data partner, ForwardKeys.
Madden-Greig is confident that more families will choose the Caribbean as their vacation spot this summer. She noted that not only are these visitors guaranteed a fun-filled visit to the Caribbean, but this will ultimately result in more earnings for the region.
“We are very excited to report that summer is going to be robust. We are seeing it when we speak to our hotel association and our members — they are seeing the demand and they are responding as well,” Madden-Greig told travel reporters during the briefing.
Travel has increased globally with the loosening of restrictions put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. If there is no return to the more stringent measures used at the height of the pandemic, Madden-Grieg said, the Caribbean will compete with its 2019 record year for travel during both the fall and winter tourism seasons.
“Based on this data, which is also provided by ForwardKeys, we are looking at six per cent up as well as for fall, which is even more phenomenal based on business on the books. We are at 18 per cent pacing ahead of 2019 and this was reported as at the 17th of June,” the president said.
Madden-Greig added, “We are seeing great indications that we are going to have a very good summer and a very good fall. With that traction we expect that winter 2022/2023 will also be strong.”
