By: Staff Writer
February 1, 2022
The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association acting chief executive says that “the region’s pace of recovery is being threatened” by the impact of the Centre’s for Disease Control (CDC) negative advisories
Vanessa Ledesma, told Caribbean Magazine Plus via email response to the question of the impact of the CDC’s recent spate of advisories on visiting the Caribbean that: “The CHTA has called on international governments to revisit travel advisories and threat levels. The region’s pace of recovery is being threatened by the imposition of these high-risk advisories and restrictions put in place by our major travel partners – the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and European Union nations.”
U.S. health officials warned U.S. travellers to avoid nearly every Caribbean Island, moving Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, St. Barts, St. Martin and Guadeloupe to its level 4 travel advisory level because of “very high” levels of COVID-19.
The islands join other Caribbean destinations, including the Bahamas and Aruba, on the CDC’s highest COVID-19 risk level.
“Avoid travel to these destinations,” the CDC says on its website. “If you must travel to these destinations, make sure you are fully vaccinated before travel.”
Ms Ledesma added, however: “Ironically, the region has fared far better in limiting cases of COVID-19 and deaths than our major travel partners have and by example the travel restrictions which have been imposed upon some of the region’s jurisdictions would not be upheld for travel within states and parts of their own countries.
“Recognizing the short duration and lessened virulence of the Omicron variant, there has been a reduction of threat levels and opening of travel protocols in source markets, but concurrently, more Caribbean jurisdictions have been raised to the fourth threat level by the United States, for example.
“We have recently brought these discrepancies to the attention of governments with the hope that they will be fairly addressed in the future.”
Travellers have grown weary of CDC warnings and are reported to still be booking vacations to the Caribbean regardless of the threat level.
With a new COVID-19 variant emerging amid the surge in the Omicron variant, how long will this nonchalance persist remains to be seen.