By: Staff Writer
November 9, 2021
A Caribbean tourism executive said that he is seeing trends of more airlift coming to the Caribbean this year than in 2019 as tourism demand is leading the recovery from the economic downturn created by the COVID-19.
Parris Jordan, managing director of HVS and founder of the Caribbean Hotel Investment Conference & Operations Summit (CHICOS) told Caribbean Magazine Plus ahead of this year’s summit at the Grand Hyatt at BahaMar this coming November 11-12, “COVID-19 impacted everybody globally, the hospitality industry was more severely impacted, and other industries.
About what to expect from this year’s summit he said: “So we’re going to show you numbers and trends as to what happened prior. What is happening now as the recovery is starting to take place, and then our forecasts for what’s going to happen in the future. So in general, participants will learn all these trends and all that information and then secondly, they’ll get the opportunity to heal leaders speak.”
Leaders from the tourism industry is expected to descend on the summit, from public sector leaders from all around the tourism and hospitality management world and leaders in the private sector. Approximately 300 attendees are expected to participate in this year’s summit and talk about the future in investment for the tourism industry. Something Parris said needed to be highlighted in this emerging post COVID-19 environment.
He said: “The positive news is that year to date, we’re seeing with every month that goes by in 2021, we see the Caribbean market recovering strongly in the Caribbean islands in general. And what is driving that recovery is the gradual easing of the restrictions. But people can travel from the source markets, from the US from Canada, from Europe, so what the easing of the restrictions combined with more people being vaccinated all over the world that is also helping drive to recovery.
He continued, “Then you have airlift, which has been increasing a lot in the past. In fact, American Airlines said to me that they will have more flights coming into the Caribbean in 2021 than they had in 2019, which was the former peak of the region.
“So when you combine all these factors, we saw like a pretty strong summer performance, but the Caribbean region, and we expect that trend to continue over the next 24 months now, barring anything unforeseen or crazy or if everything goes as planned, the Caribbean is positioned to do very, very well, because there’s a lot of pent up demand, people from the US and other source markets want to travel they want to get out they want to get outside and want to explore the region.”
He added: “The recovery for the Caribbean is being driven mainly by demand and is increasing as compared to earlier. So if you look at every month, gradually this year, the demand continues to increase and so does the average rate, in all honesty, occupancy has still been a challenge. So occupancy needs to improve, but it is it is improving, it is getting better every month, but it is not back to 2019 levels.
“The Rev/Par (Revenue per available room) is increasing again, but those increases are driven mainly because average rate has increased. But occupancy is still challenging.
“So when you look at Rev/Par, so people understand its revenue per available room, its average rate and occupancy combined. So the average rate is increasing, which is good for the region. As a hotel owner hotel and as a destination, you want your rates to be high, because you know when occupancy does come back when people are more comfortable to fly, and all the things are being putting in place for that to happen. So with the restrictions easing, the vaccines getting more and more people vaccinated and with more airlift occupancy will return.”