When the Economic Partnership Agree-ment (EPA) between the countries of Cariforum and the European Union was finally signed in 2008, the Caribbean tourism sector believed that it contained much of value to an industry that had become the region’s largest employer after the public sector; its biggest foreign exchange earner outside of the oil, gas and extractive industries; and a significant generator of external tax revenues.
During the negotiations, the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), its private sector counterpart, the Caribbean Hotels and Tourism Association (CHTA), and the region’s trade negotiators, managed to have inserted into the final text a detailed chapter on tourism, despite resistance from the European Commission which wanted only a minimal text.
Subsequently the EPA was welcomed by the industry in the belief that it offered an opportunity to begin to address tourism’s development needs, be
