Caribbean & Central America - June 2020

Moves to reopen the Caribbean to tourism are gathering pace. There is no pretence that there will be a return to pre-coronavirus (Covid 19) normality any time soon, but in a desperate situation it is at least fortuitous that the peak Caribbean tourism season runs from October to April.

In last month’s issue [EB-20-05] we reported on forecasts from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) about the likely impact of the pandemic on some of the main tourism-dependent countries of the Caribbean. As we noted, of the 25 most tourism-dependent countries in the world, no less than 12 are in the Caribbean.

In order to estimate the possible impact of the crisis, the IDB posited three time horizons for the shutdown, that is through end-June 2020, end-September 2020, and end-December 2020. It also looked at the effect of three levels of shock over these time horizons, namely a 25%, 50%, or 75% loss of tourism activity. In the worst-case scenario, a 75% loss of tourism activity lasting through to end-December, the IDB estimated that The Bahamas would lose 10.5 percentage points of GDP relative to the pre-crisis baseline estimates for 2020. For Barbados, the estimated loss was 6.5 percentage points, and for Jamaica 5.4, reflecting the relative importance of tourism to each country.

A month on from our last report, it is clear that the shutdown will last beyond end-June, but a gradual reopening is just beginning, clearly with the aim of enabling a reasonable level of normality by the time the Caribbean’s high season begins.

Among the early movers have been Antigua & Barbuda and St Lucia, both of which reopened their airports on 4 June. American Airlines indicated that it was restarting flights to Antigua from that day, but it will not begin flights from Miami, Florida, to St Lucia until 7 July. Delta (from Atlanta) and JetBlue (from New York’s JFK) have indicated a similar timescale.

To begin with the reopenings are only partial. St Lucia, for instance, has set strict criteria for hotels to begin accepting guests again, and any arrivals who are not booked into a certified hotel will have to self-isolate for 14 days. Nor, until at least 31 July, will any tourist attractions be open. Restaurants will offer only a takeaway service. It is intended that these restrictions will be slowly eased over three phases, with the second one beginning on 1 August and the third on 1 October.

Barbados and Grenada are being more cautious, with their airports closed until 30 June and no absolute certainty that their borders will reopen then. Jamaica, however, is reopening its borders from 15 June with health screening for visitors and requirements for social distancing and the wearing of face masks in public.

Jamaica has come up with a detailed 100-page rule book on health and safety protocols, with Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett describing the requirements as “perhaps the most rigorous set available anywhere in the world to protect our workers and the whole country”.

The Bahamas is also looking for a phased reopening of its tourism industry from 15 June, and it too has produced a detailed plan of action – The Bahamas Tourism Readiness and Recovery Plan – which was made public on 2 June. The action plan provides a sobering reminder of both the importance and the complexity of struggle to reopen the tourism industry. As the report highlights, tourism accounts for roughly 50% of the country’s GDP and nearly 70% of employment.

As of 10 May, the report tells us, more than 25,000 Bahamians had been laid off or lost their income as a result of the crisis, with unemployment in the near term estimated to be more than 30%. Measures to counteract these effects were estimated to have cost the government more than US$120m by end-May, and the report estimates that the local economy will shrink by as much as 14% to 20% overall in 2020, which is worse than the IDB’s initial forecasts.

According to the introduction to the action plan, the purpose of the recovery blueprint is to propose “changes to protocols and procedures to facilitate a seamless transition into an augmented, highly sanitary post-Covid-19 travel and tourism industry”.

The plan has two main intentions. The first is to provide instructions for the domestic industry on how to make The Bahamas a safe yet still enjoyable destination. The second is to “provide external markets…with the confidence and understanding that The Bahamas is deploying an approved comprehensive strategy, aligned with international, regional and local standards and best practices, to reopen the destination, in a safe and healthy manner”.

As the report puts it: “As a tourism dependent destination, our ability to propel ourselves to ‘top of mind’ amidst a cacophony of competitors (regional and international), each vying for the same depleted demand market, is essential to the restoration of our tourism industry. Other regional tourism destinations are initiating their own tourism recovery plans; The Bahamas must be a forerunner in this effort”.

The blueprint is a phased one, with a full reopening planned for 1 July. According to Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar: “This phased approach will begin on June 15 when boaters, yachters and private aviation will once again be invited to experience our destination. We will begin with these smaller special interest groups as they provide a more controlled segment to test our measures. They all will pre-register electronically, allowing health officials to determine their risk level. Also, during this phase, commercial airlines will be allowed to bring in Bahamian citizens, legal residents, homeowners, or their immediate family members. All returning persons will be required to obtain a molecular swab PCR Covid-19 test with a negative result”.

The plan requires the country’s airports to impose enhanced sanitisation and to implement temperature screening for all incoming passengers. Passengers will also be required to wear face masks when transiting the terminals and to travel with medical certificates indicating good health. Passenger travel histories will also be scrutinised. There will be floor markers to keep passengers a safe distance apart from one another, and there will be plexiglass partitions to protect airport officials from passengers. Similar measures will be imposed for seaports. With regard to hotels, staff will be required to wear face masks at all times and gloves for certain operations, such as housekeeping. Only four guests at a time will be allowed into elevators, and floors throughout hotels will be marked to ensure social distancing is maintained.

The effort involved in all this will be immense, and it will certainly change the visitor’s experience. But, realistically, The Bahamas (and much of the rest of the Caribbean) has no option, and not just because of its dependence on the tourism trade but also because the huge majority (82%) of its visitors are from the US which is one of the countries that has experienced the highest numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths. The measures will be as necessary for protecting the local population as for resurrecting the tourism industry.