Sean Nero

A sur­vey by US mag­a­zine Trav­el and Leisure shows that most va­ca­tion­ers are stick­ing to their trav­el plans to Zi­ka af­fect­ed is­lands in the Caribbean de­spite ad­vi­sories to do oth­er­wise. The pub­li­ca­tion's spe­cial projects ed­i­tor Jacque­line Gif­ford re­vealed the find­ings at a lun­cheon spon­sored by the mag­a­zine for re­gion­al tourism of­fi­cials at the Caribbean Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion's (CTO) 43rd Caribbean Week New York at the Mar­riott Mar­quis Ho­tel, Man­hat­tan.

Gif­ford said Zi­ka is clear­ly on the minds of trav­el­ers and the mag­a­zine is mon­i­tor­ing the lat­est de­vel­op­ments for the ben­e­fit of read­ers on-line and in re­al time. She said an­oth­er sur­vey re­vealed that group trav­el and wed­dings planned for the re­gion were can­celled and re­booked in ter­ri­to­ries be­lieved to be Zi­ka-free. Even so, a sub­se­quent sur­vey by Trav­el and Leisure's ad­vi­so­ry board, which con­sti­tut­ed 18 of the world's top trav­el agents, showed clients are keep­ing their trav­el plans to Zi­ka af­fect­ed re­gions.

"Sev­en­ty-six per cent were keep­ing their plans, 13 per cent were can­celling their plans, six per cent were trav­el­ling the same day to non-Zi­ka re­gions and five per­cent were post­pon­ing their plans," she said.

"Al­so, 99 per cent of their clients were knowl­edge­able about the Zi­ka virus. There are var­i­ous lev­els of ed­u­ca­tion here and I think the im­por­tant thing to do is to keep this on-go­ing process and to make sure that peo­ple stay aware. We are do­ing our job as a trust­ed me­dia brand to do the same thing. It's some­thing we are mon­i­tor­ing and we want to make sure that every­body is on the same page and have the most up-to-date in­for­ma­tion."

Gif­ford said the Caribbean re­tained its pop­u­lar­i­ty de­spite the ef­forts of oth­er mar­kets to woo trav­eller and there are op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth in this mar­ket.

"The Caribbean is the num­ber two mar­ket with Eu­rope be­ing num­ber one. This is a re­al­ly, re­al­ly pow­er­ful mar­ket," she said.

Gif­ford added: "I do think that culi­nary trav­el is some­thing that is re­al­ly pop­u­lar right now and it's on­ly go­ing to get big­ger. Some­times peo­ple are plan­ning their trips around the meals that they want to have. They'll look at the restau­rants and then they'll build a whole va­ca­tion about the reser­va­tions that they can make.

"I know that many des­ti­na­tions are look­ing to grow things lo­cal­ly. That's some­thing that Amer­i­can trav­ellers are com­ing to ex­pect when it comes to farm to ta­ble�that kind of con­cept."