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The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association has challenged governments to do more for the industry.
The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association says many governments in the region still seem not to grasp the enormity of the challenges facing tourism.
Hundreds of people have lost their jobs in the regional hotel sector over the past year and according to the CHTA tourist arrivals for 2008 were down by 3 percent compared to 2007.
So, to drive home the message, the organisation is planning a region-wide publicity campaign calling on governments to give more support to the sector.
The CHTA has in the past accused Caricom governments of not giving tourism the importance it deserves.
Caricom heads of government agreed last year that the industry, the lifeblood of several islands, should form part of the agenda of their annual summits, starting this year in July.
At their 2008, the leaders agreed to set up a fund to help market the region in international markets.
<span style="font-weight: bold">No priority</span>
The CHTA’s president, Enrique de Marchena, told BBC Caribbean of their displeasure with the apparent lack of priority given to tourism by some governments, despite the fact that the sector is key to many of their economies.
<span style="font-weight: bold">CHTA's Marchena is critical of Caricom's commitment to tourism </span>
“There needs to be more support, beginning with an understanding of the state of the industry right now.
“What we are seeing now is that tourism is down in most of the islands.”
The CHTA's plan of action will be reviewed and discussed at a meeting in Miami in June.
Asked how they’ll guage the impact of their puiblicity campaign, Mr Marchena said: “One of the hopes that we have is that the Caribbean Marketing Fund is going to be approved. This is an initiative that has been on the table for almost a year.
“I think that is hurting the Caribbean because (the region) doesn’t have anything better than tourism to restore the economies of the countries.”
<span style="font-weight: bold">
Tourism's impact</span>
The St Lucia Tourism Minister, Allen Chastenet, himself a former tourism executive, admits that as a region, Caricom is yet to fully measure the impact of the tourism industry.
“I still think there’s a tremendous amount of misunderstanding about how the industry works and what’s required in order to have it succeed,” Mr Chastenet told BBC Caribbean.
“As a result,” he added, “we are not perhaps implementing fully, the levels of policies that we ought to.”
However, the St Lucia tourism minister went to state that there are a number of countries that have made the industry a priority and are seeing the benefits.
One issue Mr Chastenet feels strongly about is concessions to the land-based tourism industry.
He argues that the cruise industry is still a bigger beneficiary of government support than that offered to hotels and other land-based tourism investments.
“That even seems to have failed the comprehension of a lot of the countries in the region,” he said.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Delayed recognition</span>
While he doesn’t share their full sentiments of the Caribbean Hotel Association, Mr Chastenet does agree that it has taken too long for tourism to start getting the recognition it deserves by Caricom.
“It was only last year at the Heads of Government meeting that tourism was finally officially recognised at the Caricom level," he reminded.
One of the main ideas coming out of that was to fund a joint marketing campaign with the proceeds from a proposed three US dollars-per-head tax on airline tickets.
But Mr Chastenet now feels it may be too late for that.
“I’m not so sure that that’s catching favour right now given the global financial crisis. World events have surpassed the decision-making," he told BBC Caribbean.
“We have not been able in 17 years to decide on how we are going to fund a regional marketing campaign.”
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