The curse of the Caribbean

Canopy walkway

By Bert Hoffmann

No region depends more on tourism than the Caribbean. Now, during the corona crisis, it’s deserted and vulnerable.

Of the twenty (20) countries in the world that depend most on tourism, eleven (11) are in the Caribbean. Everyone longs to be there. Now, however, borders are sealed, planes grounded and cruise ships stranded at sea. The COVID-19 crisis has plunged the Caribbean into an existential crisis that seriously challenges its development model. In recent decades, countries in the region were optimized for globalization. But now the globalized economy is imploding and they have got to figure out how to survive.