Tourism leaders push logistics network to keep tourism dollars in the region

An­drea Perez Sobers

ST JOHN’S, An­tigua — Caribbean tourism lead­ers are mov­ing to re­shape the re­gion’s tourism econ­o­my with a new push to build a re­gion­al lo­gis­tics and sup­ply chain frame­work aimed at keep­ing more tourism dol­lars with­in Caribbean economies.

The ini­tia­tive was un­veiled dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the 44th edi­tion of the Caribbean Trav­el Mar­ket­place 2026 in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, where re­gion­al of­fi­cials out­lined plans for a new work­ing com­mis­sion fo­cused on strength­en­ing tourism sup­ply chains, im­prov­ing busi­ness in­te­gra­tion and re­duc­ing de­pen­dence on im­ports.

Lead­ing the dis­cus­sions were Dona Reg­is-Pros­per, Ian Good­ing-Edghill and Ed­mund Bartlett.

Of­fi­cials said the re­gion can no longer re­ly sole­ly on vis­i­tor ar­rivals while im­port­ing large vol­umes of goods and ser­vices used by the tourism sec­tor.

In­stead, the com­mis­sion will fo­cus on build­ing stronger re­gion­al pro­duc­tion net­works ca­pa­ble of sup­ply­ing ho­tels, restau­rants, cruise op­er­a­tors and tourism busi­ness­es across the Caribbean.

Reg­is-Pros­per said the plan is in­tend­ed to cre­ate deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ments, tourism agen­cies, pri­vate sec­tor op­er­a­tors and in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment in­sti­tu­tions.

The pro­posed frame­work is built around eight ma­jor ar­eas: re­gion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty, in­vest­ment, in­fra­struc­ture, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, labour mo­bil­i­ty, hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment, vis­i­tor fa­cil­i­ta­tion and sup­ply chain re­silience.

Bartlett said the Caribbean must move ag­gres­sive­ly to strength­en the con­nec­tion be­tween tourism and broad­er eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

He ar­gued that the re­gion has spent decades grow­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals while fail­ing to suf­fi­cient­ly ex­pand do­mes­tic and re­gion­al pro­duc­tion sys­tems ca­pa­ble of ben­e­fit­ing from tourism de­mand.

Bartlett al­so stressed the need to pro­fes­sion­alise the tourism sup­pli­er net­work and ex­pand re­gion­al man­u­fac­tur­ing and agri­cul­tur­al ca­pac­i­ty to ser­vice ho­tels and tourism op­er­a­tors through­out the Caribbean.

Good­ing-Edghill said the project forms part of a broad­er long-term strat­e­gy to in­crease the share of tourism rev­enue re­tained with­in Caribbean economies.

He not­ed that while the Caribbean at­tracts mil­lions of vis­i­tors an­nu­al­ly, too much tourism spend­ing still leaks out of the re­gion through im­ports and over­seas pro­cure­ment.

Re­gion­al of­fi­cials be­lieve a stronger tourism lo­gis­tics net­work could help cre­ate jobs, deep­en busi­ness link­ages and im­prove eco­nom­ic re­turns from tourism across is­land economies.

The ini­tia­tive emerged from meet­ings be­tween the Caribbean Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion and re­gion­al ho­tel and tourism as­so­ci­a­tions held along­side Caribbean Trav­el Mar­ket­place this week.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Saint Kitts and Nevis, An­guil­la, Be­lize, the British Vir­gin Is­lands and sev­er­al oth­er Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries par­tic­i­pat­ed in the talks.

Of­fi­cials con­firmed that the Caribbean Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion Coun­cil of Min­is­ters has al­ready ap­proved the con­cep­tu­al frame­work for the ini­tia­tive, al­low­ing the project to move in­to its im­ple­men­ta­tion phase.

In­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions in­clud­ing the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank and the World Bank are ex­pect­ed to pro­vide tech­ni­cal sup­port and pos­si­ble fi­nanc­ing as­sis­tance as the project de­vel­ops.

Tourism of­fi­cials be­lieve the pro­posed lo­gis­tics hub could be­come one of the re­gion’s most sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion projects in years, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Caribbean gov­ern­ments search for new ways to con­vert strong tourism ar­rivals in­to broad­er eco­nom­ic growth.

The move al­so comes as re­gion­al tourism of­fi­cials con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions on im­prov­ing in­tra-Caribbean trav­el, air­lift co­or­di­na­tion and trade link­ages as part of wider ef­forts to strength­en eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion across the Caribbean.