CARIBBEAN-TOURISM-Regional tourism ministers to visit the Middle East

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Jamaica’s Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, will join his counterparts from several Caribbean countries, including The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, and Cuba, for a visit to the Middle East at the end of November.

“We are going to be talking with the four big airlines… Qatar, Etihad, Emirates, and Saudia…What we are looking at is a strategy that will connect the Caribbean in full to the far-flung markets of the world,” Bartlett said.

He said that the visit is to solidify a multi-destination tourism strategy and open the Middle-Eastern market to the Caribbean and that the trip will be the first of its kind for the region’s tourism.

Bartlett said the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, and Cuba are involved in multi-destination tourism, adding, “I want to bring in other ministers within the region because our northern Caribbean represents an important area for multi-destination.”

The northern Caribbean convergence includes Jamaica, Cuba, The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, and Bartlett indicated that Panama would be included, as the country has already signed a multi-destination agreement with countries in the northern Caribbean.

“What we are looking at is a strategy that will connect the Caribbean in full to the far-flung markets of the world. The Middle East represents a lucrative and growing area and one that is of great interest to us,” he said, noting that during the visit, which will also include the leadership of the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), there will be discussions with several airline partners.

“We are going to be talking with the four big airlines… Qatar, Etihad, Emirates and Saudia. The idea is to use that connection into the Caribbean through the hub-and-spoke-arrangement. We will use hub at one of our islands, and then we would distribute from that hub into the various other parts of the Caribbean,” Bartlett explained, noting that the arrangement would be a “game changer for the entire Caribbean and for tourism in general.”