Last Updated on Wednesday, 7 October 2026, 21:52 by Writer
President Irfaan Ali on Wednesday chided investors in the Caribbean for failing to grab opportunities in the tourism sector, at a time when Middle East countries have been spending heavily on creating a high-value tourism product.
“This is where our investors are missing, this is where our investors are too laid-back, they are complacent, they are satisfied with the product that nature has given them but the future is going to be completely different,” he said.
He challenged the opening of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) State of the Tourism Industry Conference (SOTIC) 2026 to discuss long-term tourism investment plans for different regions.
“We have to be very, very conscious about what is happening in the global market,” he said.
Unlike Middle East nations that have the resources for marketing and branding and going for almost every major global events including sport, concerts, festivals and theme parks, he said this region could collectively decide to create the infrastructure to target 10 major global events by 2035.
Citing Guyana as an example, he said the country was willing to provide the land and scale for the first world-class tropical forest night safari.
He admitted that the Caribbean would find it “very difficult” to invest in tourism in the same way as the Middle East, but floated the idea of the region partnering with countries like Saudi Arabia “that allows us to integrate.”
The president also urged Caribbean nations to integrate their transportation infrastructure.
He said the Caribbean had already lost an opportunity to build a partnership and integrate with the huge markets in Latin America firstly by making Spanish a compulsory language.
“But we did not take an important policy decision of ensuring our language is shaped by the region in which we are,” said Dr Ali, a former tourism minister.
He said English is freely spoken in the Middle East.
He said Middle East nations have identified tourism as one of its biggest areas of economic diversification away from oil and gas, concentrating on very high-scale but low-priced luxury resorts and hospitality.
He said one of the advantages is the proximity of the Middle East to large and cheap labour sources such as India, Philippines, China, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Dr Ali praised Barbados’ development of its marina with an upscale resort near the Kensington Oval.
The President said Guyana would not only be hosting the 2nd Global Biodiversity Alliance summit next month but has applied to host the Conference of the Parties (COP) 2030, the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
The Guyanese leader also urged the CTO to negotiate contingency provisions in agreements to cater for natural disasters rather than await an occurrence to do so.
