Apparently there was a Caribbean Tourism Summit meeting last week in Washington held under the auspices of the Caribbean Tourism Organization. According to this article, it was the first annual Caribbean Tourism Summit. The fact that tourism is the live-blood of most of the Caribbean islands and in 2008 we have for the first time been able to convene a summit is instructive.
A couple things stood out when we read the article. Firstly we noticed that that former United States Chairman of the Federal Reserve participated in the summit. Out of curiosity we wonder how much money the retired manipulator of the world’s financial market had to be paid to participate.
Here is a snippet of what Greenspan told tourism leaders from the Caribbean:
In a series of informal exchanges in front of conference participants, Dr Greenspan, a man whose views can still move markets, told his interlocutor, Sir Dwight Venner, governor of the East Caribbean Central Bank, that the long-term trend for Caribbean tourism was positive. The industry’s fortunes would follow rising living standards in prosperous geographically close states, and the Caribbean would remain a desirable destination for the northern hemisphere.
Having built-up the expectation of the region’s tourism leaders Greenspan was quoted later in the conference as follows:
Oil prices were likely to continue to rise as they were largely a function of a decrease in global reserves of oil. As investment in new production had diminished and demand increased, such reserves were now only running parallel to production.
The consequence was that prices had risen and the investment community had placed a high value on holding investments in oil, the former Federal Reserve Chairman suggested, for periods of up to a decade and a half. The consequence was that changing demand and speculation may lead to continuing instability, resulting in sudden price falls occurring against an overall continuing upward trend in the price of oil.
Maybe we are missing something but what was Greenspan trying to say? To be honest is sounds like a good dose of ‘gobblygook’. It seems mind boggling to the BU household that in 2008 we would have four or five regional airlines all battling for supremacy in the small Caribbean skies. This is happening against the world’s leading airlines which have better management, equipment, critical mass, brand name and other factors going for it, and bankruptcies continue to be a feature of the industry. It also might explain why the Trinidad government seems hell bent on buying a private jet. Some of our leaders surely have their heads up each other’s tails.
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It does not take an HC boy to correctly analyse that at the regional level we have to strategize to tackle the problem of airlift servicing our region. The fact that the global economic turbulence continues to wreck havoc on the airline industry is not good news for our region. It continues to be an indictment on the region that our despotic leaders, who all lead small economies which depend on tourism, do not realize that an avant guard approach is required. In fairness to Barbadian hotelier Ralph Taylor and St. Lucia Tourism Minister Alan Chastenet they have been calling for drastic action for sometime. Let us not forget Adrian Loveridge who has been ‘mummed’ in recent times given the collective responsibility he now has to respect as a BTA board member.
On July 02 the Caribbean leaders will be meeting in Antigua. Hopefully the utterances which we have come to expect from CARICOM will now take on a steely purpose which is required by the seriousness of the times.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.