BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos–Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Caribbean Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CTO) Hugh Ri­ley has de­scribed 2016 as an im­pres­sive, yet chal­leng­ing year for Caribbean tourism.

"We have seen a rise in tourist ar­rivals when com­pared to our record year in 2015, fu­eled by strong per­for­mances in Eu­rope–main­ly the Unit­ed King­dom and Ger­many–and from the Unit­ed States, and we are poised to meet the 30 mil­lion ar­rivals tar­get set two years ago at our State of the Tourism In­dus­try Con­fer­ence in the Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands," he said in a year-end mes­sage.

How­ev­er, he said, there were con­cerns about the Cana­di­an mar­ket be­cause of de­clin­ing num­bers due to the weak­en­ing of the Cana­di­an dol­lar.

Ri­ley said: "We are mov­ing to re­verse that slide, com­bin­ing our ef­forts with those of our CTO mem­ber-coun­tries and our in­dus­try part­ners. In the first quar­ter of 2017 we will hire a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive to sub­stan­tial­ly en­hance the Caribbean's en­gage­ment in Cana­da's most pro­duc­tive ar­eas, iden­ti­fy and de­vel­op busi­ness in non-tra­di­tion­al ar­eas and work close­ly with our mem­bers' rep­re­sen­ta­tives for max­i­mum im­pact.

"New trav­el agent train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, in­creased use of tar­get­ed so­cial me­dia, en­hanced de­ploy­ment of the CTO's da­ta analy­sis tools, and more fo­cused en­gage­ment with the Caribbean Di­as­po­ra are all com­po­nents of the 2017 strat­e­gy for Cana­da."

He said ho­tels in the re­gion faced chal­lenges from ma­jor mar­kets, so while air ar­rival num­bers were up, key per­for­mance met­rics for the ho­tel in­dus­try record­ed de­clines through the first half of 2016.

"The slumps were in­flu­enced by a rise in room stock and a fall in de­mand for tra­di­tion­al ho­tel rooms, at­trib­uted in part to 'the shar­ing econ­o­my'."

Ri­ley added: "Moth­er Na­ture chal­lenged us as well, with some of our mem­ber-coun­tries af­fect­ed in vary­ing de­grees by hur­ri­canes. Yet, de­spite the ad­ver­si­ties oc­ca­sioned by these events, our re­silience and for­ti­tude as a re­gion stood out and even the worst af­fect­ed were back open for busi­ness in quick time, prov­ing that tourism is an ef­fec­tive way to re-en­er­gise an econ­o­my fol­low­ing a nat­ur­al or oth­er dis­as­ter.

"The on­set of the Zi­ka virus al­so pre­sent­ed a chal­lenge and the CTO con­tin­ues to work with our part­ners, the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion and the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency to ad­dress con­cerns raised by our sup­pli­ers and po­ten­tial vis­i­tors.

"We al­so con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the pos­si­ble im­pact of the Brex­it vote as the UK moves to end and its mem­ber­ship in the Eu­ro­pean Union. De­vel­op­ments in the Unit­ed States too are oc­cu­py­ing our fo­cused at­ten­tion, the US mar­ket be­ing the pri­ma­ry sup­pli­er of vis­i­tors to the Caribbean."

Ri­ley an­nounced that 2017 will be the Year of Ad­ven­ture in the Caribbean and mem­bers and part­ners, both with­in and out­side the Caribbean, are be­ing en­cour­aged to or­gan­ise events and ac­tiv­i­ties and share them with the CTO.

"The spir­it of ad­ven­ture lives in all of us and in every mem­ber-coun­try of the CTO," he said.