When it comes to valuing tourism’s economic contribution, most Caribbean governments share publicly only arrival numbers and the country of origin of their visitors. Then, usually at budget time, they produce generalised figures that indicate overall spending and contribution to GDP.
Few provide the detailed analysis that would determine how profitable their industry is or, for example, the demographic profile of visitors, average hotel occupancy rates, or seek to filter out arrivals which are not tourism related. Moreover, there is an unfortunate absence of viable, in-depth Caribbean-generated information on what is happening in specific markets, or details on how many visitors are now staying in non-hotel accommodation.
