In keeping with the theme “Tourism: the Business of The Caribbean” from its annual conference of last October, the Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Hon. Pamela Richards, indicated during a recent conference that CTO will continue to focus on a much more business-like approach to tourism development over the course of the next several years, and will be encouraging all of its members to proceed along the same lines. She predicted that as a result of these efforts, increasing visitor expenditure should easily keep pace with the 3.4 percent per year rate predicted by the World Travel & Tourism Council for the next ten years to reach $32 billion by 2015. According to preliminary estimates of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, visitor expenditures reached $23 billion in 2005, with stay over visitors growing by 3.6 percent to reach 22.5 million. Cruise passenger visits declined by 2% to 19.8 million.

Referring again to WTTC data, Commissioner Richards noted that the Caribbean is more dependent on tourism than any other region in the world, and in order for the region to extract the maximum benefits from tourism on behalf of its citizens, it has no choice but to take a much more business-like approach to its development compared to what has been done in the past. In addition, CTO, in conjunction with its private sector partner, the Caribbean Hotel Association, with whom it recently signed ....._CBJ