Tourism now dominates most Caribbean economies, drawing huge numbers of visitors and wealth into the region. Despite this, many of those who work in or with the sector have yet to benefit fully from its success.
A few days ago, in the less than likely location of Baku in Azerbaijan, Jamaica’s Tourism Minister asked a question that few Caribbean governments seem to want to address. That is, whether an industry worth US$62 billion to the region in 2018 is delivering benefits in an equitable manner and if its workers and dependent enterprises are receiving a fair share of the wealth it generates?
The Minister, Edmund Bartlett, whose name has become something of a byword internationally for new thinking about tourism, said that if the sector is to be truly sustainable it must deliver a more equitable distribution of earnings and provide greater equality among stakeholders.
