BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The Secretary General of the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), Hugh Riley, says regional countries are still trying to recover from the effects of the 2008 financial crisis.

Speaking on a radio programme here ahead of next week’s CTO’s “State of the Industry Conference (SOTIC),” which will be held here from September 14-16, Riley said “whereas arrivals keep increasing, which is a good thing … the spend is six or seven years back. So we’re only now catching up with the spend.

 “If something happens tomorrow to cause you to start dropping your rates precipitously the experts will show you it will take five to seven years to get those rates back. It is that long before you can come back to where you really ought to be. So we are still feeling the effects of rate drops and discounting from the financial crisis of 2008-2009,” Riley said.

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA), Dr Kerry Hall, pointed to a perennial lack of investment in tourism infrastructure, which she said has resulted in the Caribbean offering a “tired product” to visitors.

“The Caribbean tends to have a bit of a tired product and this goes back to the fact that a lot of islands have physical constraints, the recession has taken its toll.  And ironically in order to make sure our products are constantly reinvented and refreshed, will require injections of tourism investment and sometimes that’s just not forthcoming.

“Because when money has to be spent, sometimes there are other areas of priority above those, and that has an impact as well on us because if we have a tired product, there are a lot of destinations out there, emerging destinations, which are giving a higher quality product for a more cost-effective price,” Hall told listeners to the radio programme.

She noted that the Caribbean needs to “do whatever we have to do to remain competitive, particularly in the face of extreme competition in what she said is probably the most volatile environments in the history of the region’s tourism industry.

Tourism officials say they continue to grapple with issues of safety and security, as well as acts of terrorism and geo-political upheaval in the international markets.

Issues of currency fluctuations and climate change are also high on their agenda, as could potentially affect arrivals figures.

“We will suffer from rising sea levels and coastal degradation, rising temperatures, and also overseas we’re gonna see longer summers and hotter winters. And that is going to have an impact on movement to the Caribbean,” Hall said.