By: Staff Writer
March 31, 2023
A senior Caribbean tourism consultant says that renewable energy for the hotel sector in the Caribbean is not a viable option because it is “extremely expensive,” and destabilizes power grids.
Loreto Duffy-Mayers, environmental management consultant and former project manager for the Caribbean Hotel Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Programme, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Union, told a webinar on Sustainable Tourism in the Caribbean that “, it is extremely expensive for hotels to go renewable.”
Renewable energy being too costly is one issue, the other issue is that power companies have been complaining that when they try to integrate renewables into the energy mix, they are “destabilizing grids,” Ms Duffy-Mayers added.
Integrating renewable energy into the tourism sector is an initiative that organisations like the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) have earnestly tried to make happen.
The Caribbean Hotel Energy Efficiency Action (CHENACT) is one such energy efficiency project originally financed by: IDB, GTZ, CDE, UNEP, BL&P, BHTA and Government of Barbados. It was implemented by the CTO and the CHTA through its initiative, the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism (CAST).
On the CHTA’s website, it is said that CHENACT’s goal is to improve the competitiveness of the small and medium sized hotels (less than 400 rooms) in the Caribbean through more affordable and predictable energy costs, through improved use of energy with the emphasis on Renewable Energy and Micro-Generation, while assisting Caribbean governments meet their international obligations in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and phase-out of ozone depleting substances (ODS).
Nicola Madden-Greig, president of the CHTA, also said that environmental protection is “key” to securing the projected 13.4m new jobs in tourism by 2032. “The potential for growth for the Caribbean is really quite interesting according to the WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council), and we are looking at somewhere in the region of an additional 1.3 4m new jobs by 2032, and a doubling in GDP over the next 10 years.
“So we are in a very exciting time for tourism in the Caribbean. There are some headwinds and challenges that we need to pay attention to. Key to that, of course, is price preparedness, environmental protection and the whole issue of sustainability, not only in terms of the nature based side of it, but in terms of technology, infrastructure and human capital.”
Despite these headwinds the Caribbean is still leading the “travel recovery,” worldwide with the region just one percent below 2019 inbound travel numbers.