Peter Odle, president of the Caribbean Hotel Association, says despite a low summer, Caribbean tourism should see growth in 2007. - File

The Caribbean's bread and butter tourism industry hit a low point in summer according to Peter Odle, president of the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), but not sufficient to erode year-long growth.

"I think that it is safe to say that for the Caribbean the summer this year was a bit of a difficult period. There was a general slowdown in the area," Odle told the Caribbean Media Corporation.

But: "I think some countries are still maintaining some growth."

Citing Barbados, Odle said the country was on target for the 4.0 per cent growth in tourism projected at the start of the year.

"I think that possibly it might exceed it by a couple of decimal points," he predicted.

Jamaica doing well

Jamaica's performance was even stronger, recording both growth in arrivals and earnings.

The country had its best ever month in July, a record-setting 180,000 visitors, while for January to September stopover visitors grew 17.2 per cent to reach 1.3 million, exceeding targeted expectations by 6.4 per cent.

The Jamaica Tourist Board also estimates that tourist spend reached US$1.4 billion within that nine month period, up 24.6 per cent over the matching period in 2005.

Odle said regionwide a combination of factors, both internal and external, climactic and market driven, had impacted negatively on Caribbean tourism in 2006.

Contributing factors

"One of the problems in recent times is that we have had a lot of hurricanes in the region, so we are finding that period - for example, middle of August, end of August, September, October - people are tending to shy away a little bit because that late period is associated with hurricanes.

Europe, this year, was also competition for the Caribbean with the July staging of World Cup football in Germany.

Additionally, Asian countries that were affected by the 2004 tsunami have been returning to the market and reclaiming business that had diverted to the Caribbean and elsewhere.

But Odle still expects most regional destinations to record growth this year even though he acknowledged concerns ahead of next year's Cricket World Cup (CWC 2007) being staged at the tail end of the four-month winter tourist season that the Caribbean's traditional clientele might stay away.

"March is one area where we still have some concerns but there are a number of initiatives in the marketplace to try to move the March numbers, he said

"We think that is a direct result of people thinking that cricket is in March and April ... the traditional people who come in that period tend to shy away somewhat because they are not necessarily coming for the cricket," he said.

- CMC and Gleaner reports