The Caribbean tourism sec­tor is do­ing well and is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to in­crease rev­enue in 2025, but the in­dus­try is still strug­gling to find skilled work­ers.

This was among the find­ings high­light­ed as the Caribbean Ho­tel & Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (CHTA) re­leased its an­nu­al Caribbean Tourism In­dus­try Per­for­mance & 2025 Out­look Re­port.

The re­port high­light­ed strong rev­enue growth, ex­pan­sion of vis­i­tor mar­kets, as well as con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in the re­gion’s tourism sec­tor.

The re­port not­ed these pos­i­tives but al­so list­ed ob­sta­cles such as ris­ing op­er­at­ing costs, labour short­ages, and prof­itabil­i­ty chal­lenges.

The CHTA re­port, how­ev­er, not­ed, “Most busi­ness­es re­port­ed prof­its, demon­strat­ing re­silience and con­fi­dence in the in­dus­try’s fu­ture.”

The re­port was based on a sur­vey of tourism busi­ness­es across 20 Caribbean des­ti­na­tions and pro­vid­ed a look at the in­dus­try’s per­for­mance in 2024 and the ex­pec­ta­tions for 2025. It high­light­ed sig­nif­i­cant trends such as rev­enue growth, labour mar­ket shifts, ris­ing op­er­a­tional costs, and in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ty as well as of­fer­ing in­sights in­to how busi­ness­es are nav­i­gat­ing chal­lenges and cap­i­tal­is­ing on op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The CHTA stat­ed, “In­dus­try sen­ti­ment re­mains over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive, with 98 per cent of re­spon­dents con­fi­dent in the sec­tor’s tra­jec­to­ry. Busi­ness­es an­tic­i­pate con­tin­ued rev­enue growth, dri­ven by strong vis­i­tor de­mand, con­tin­ued cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­tures to up­grade prop­er­ties and des­ti­na­tions and on­go­ing in­vest­ments in work­force de­vel­op­ment and des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing.”

CHTA CEO Vanes­sa Ledes­ma said, “The Caribbean tourism in­dus­try con­tin­ues to show in­cred­i­ble re­silience and adapt­abil­i­ty.”

“Even with ris­ing costs and glob­al un­cer­tain­ties, the re­gion re­mains one of the world’s top trav­el des­ti­na­tions, thanks to strate­gic in­vest­ments and a strong com­mit­ment to growth. In­sights from this re­port will help guide CHTA’s ef­forts to bet­ter sup­port our mem­bers, strength­en the in­dus­try, and en­sure con­tin­ued suc­cess for hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism pro­fes­sion­als across the Caribbean.”

The an­nu­al sur­vey has been con­duct­ed since 2014. The re­port has pro­vid­ed CHTA and sev­er­al na­tion­al ho­tel and tourism as­so­ci­a­tions, gov­ern­ments, and tourism stake­hold­ers with in­sights and bench­marks to help gauge their progress and guide de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, some of the key find­ings from 2024 in­clud­ed rev­enue growth de­spite ris­ing costs.

The re­port stat­ed 65 per cent of busi­ness­es raised room rates in 2024 to off­set in­creas­ing ex­pens­es. How­ev­er, it ex­plained that 57 per cent saw high­er food and bev­er­age rev­enue.

The ma­jor chal­lenge high­light­ed in the re­port re­lat­ed to work­force ex­pan­sion, as many busi­ness­es across the sec­tor ex­pe­ri­enced hir­ing chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the case of find­ing skilled work­ers.

The re­port stat­ed that 47 per cent of busi­ness­es ex­pand­ed their work­force in 2024, and 36 per cent plan to hire more in 2025. How­ev­er, 73 per cent re­port­ed dif­fi­cul­ty re­cruit­ing spe­cialised staff such as chefs and en­gi­neers.

This has been a long-voiced con­cern with­in the re­gion as tourism stake­hold­ers have not­ed strug­gles to find work­ers. A prob­lem that was fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic when many skilled work­ers ex­it­ed the in­dus­try en­tire­ly af­ter the in­dus­try was vir­tu­al­ly shut down.

Shinelle Smith, tourism ed­u­ca­tor and chair of ed­u­ca­tion at COSTAATT, agreed with the find­ings of the re­port. She how­ev­er said the hu­man re­source is­sue did re­quire some at­ten­tion.

“The re­gion­al tourism in­dus­try re­mains one that is re­silient. De­spite its sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to ex­ter­nal fluc­tu­a­tions, we note that de­spite such vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, Caribbean des­ti­na­tions are able to grow, re­brand and im­prove their of­fer­ings,” Smith told the Busi­ness Guardian on Tues­day.

She con­tin­ued, “How­ev­er, while this growth re­flects pos­i­tive­ly on the in­dus­try, we must be mind­ful of the bal­anc­ing act in pro­vid­ing the hu­man re­source cap­i­tal to ad­e­quate­ly meet the pro­posed de­mands of the in­dus­try.”

She urged greater in­vest­ment as a re­sult of this surge in glob­al in­ter­est, not­ing that it would be cru­cial in bol­ster­ing the in­dus­try go­ing for­ward.

The CHTA re­port con­firmed there in­deed had been greater in­vest­ment in in­fra­struc­ture with 62 per cent of busi­ness­es in­creased cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­tures with 59 per cent us­ing tax in­cen­tives for ren­o­va­tions and 24 per cent for new de­vel­op­ments.

She said, “With many des­ti­na­tions now boast­ing of pre-pan­dem­ic ar­rivals, this has sig­nalled that the re­gion is ripe for in­vest­ment. New restau­rants and ho­tels ne­ces­si­tate that we take a clos­er look at the train­ing needs in the re­gion. We must ask the right ques­tions which will lead us to take a clos­er look at what the tourism in­dus­try needs to thrive.”

There has been lim­it­ed train­ing in the ho­tel and food and bev­er­age sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the clo­sure of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute in Au­gust 2020.

She asked, “Are tourism-re­lat­ed mod­ules in the cur­ric­u­la de­signed in align­ment with the ca­pac­i­ty needs of the in­dus­try? Are the train­ing in­sti­tu­tions well equipped to de­liv­er learn­ing ma­te­r­i­al fit for an evolv­ing and more nu­anced clien­tele with spe­cif­ic needs and ex­pec­ta­tions? Do we have ac­cess to a pool of re­gion­al fac­ul­ty and ex­perts with the aca­d­e­m­ic and prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence to train these stu­dents in hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism?”

An­oth­er lo­cal tourism stake­hold­er, cruise line agent, Charles Car­val­ho ac­knowl­edged the staffing chal­lenge as he not­ed there was a dy­namism in the in­dus­try that reg­u­lar­ly saw staff move across the in­dus­try.

“They like to move around so I might get a job at the ho­tel to­day. I might stay there for eight months, six months a year, but I go to an­oth­er ho­tel be­cause I have the ex­pe­ri­ence. So I go to a cruise line, I get a job, and I am work­ing as a chef, but I’ve had five years with Roy­al Caribbean, so de­cide to change. I want to go to MSC. So that’s how it is,” he said.

“My view is that there’s room for new em­ploy­ment in the tourism sec­tor,” said Car­val­ho, who stat­ed that by push­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young, new work­ers, this is­sue could be ad­dressed.

Ahead of the open­ing of The Al­ley at East Gates in Feb­ru­ary, Lisa John­ston, the busi­ness’ restau­rant con­sul­tant con­firmed that the staff large­ly had to be trained from scratch.

Car­val­ho al­so ac­knowl­edged the fact that 65 per cent of busi­ness­es re­port­ed room rates in­creas­es. He felt this change, which was gen­er­al­ly brought up­on by high­er op­er­a­tion and ser­vice providers costs, could per­haps be fought with a uni­fied ap­proach across the Caribbean.

“There is a rise in costs, some­thing that we have to live with in terms of how do we lever­age the ris­ing costs to room stock, and the on­ly way we can ben­e­fit or off­set your ris­ing cost is to in­crease room rates. But what I am sug­gest­ing is that the Caribbean is a one en­ti­ty,” he said.

“The Caribbean Cruise Re­port and the Caribbean Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, they should look at the Caribbean as a whole, one re­gion, be­cause yes, the Caribbean right now is the biggest mar­ket for North Amer­i­cans and Eu­ro­peans. But we are not our neigh­bours’ com­peti­tors. I’m say­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go is not a com­peti­tor for Ja­maica or Grena­da or Bar­ba­dos. So they are not a com­peti­tor for us. Our com­peti­tors are oth­er re­gions, places like Sey­chelles and Thai­land and oth­er places with trop­i­cal set­tings.”

He con­tin­ued, “Those are the peo­ple we have to fo­cus on. And if we fo­cus on that, you’ll find that the ris­ing costs in the ho­tel in­dus­try can sub­side be­cause you have more room avail­able for ad­di­tion­al vis­i­tors to the re­gion.”

The re­port stat­ed while the in­dus­try con­tin­ued to have pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tors head­ing in­to 2025, there were sev­er­al po­ten­tial con­cerns in­clud­ing crime, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and sup­ply chain is­sues.