by Shane Nelson
Last updated: 7:00 AM ET, Mon October 19, 2026
Guyana president Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali kicked off the
Caribbean Tourism Organization’s 2026 State of the Tourism Industry Conference
(SOTIC) with some plainspoken advice for the region’s travel sector
stakeholders.
“We have to go bigger,” Ali insisted during his keynote
address at SOTIC, held for the first time in Guyana Oct. 5-9 this year at the
Atlantic Suites Hotel in Georgetown.
“For tourism to
succeed, compete and stay alive in this region, we have to scale up our
thinking, scale up our infrastructure, scale up our commitment,” Ali said. “And
for people within the region, we need to scale up our approach. Why do I say
this? If you look around the world today, tourism is being defined by
investment.”
Slightly smaller than Idaho, Guyana is the only country in
South America where English is the official language, and thanks largely to a
2015 discovery of gas and oil reserves off its Atlantic coastline, the nation’s
economy has grown at a dizzying rate in recent years. Guyana’s gross domestic
product (GDP) climbed more than 19% in 2025, after a 43.8% jump in 2024,
according to the World Bank Group.
Pointing to the Middle East as a region where several
nations have diversified their economies by investing heavily in tourism, Ali
encouraged Caribbean travel industry leaders to consider the Middle East’s
aggressive approach thoughtfully.
“They're investing in theme parks, expos and conferences,
heritage and culture, … and they're doing it at a scale that is unbelievable
because they have resources, and they have made the decision that tourism is an
important part of diversifying from oil,” Ali said. “We cannot come to a
conference like this and not discuss the 2035 plans of different regions around
the world. … We have to be very, very, very conscious about what is happening
in the global market.”
Sustainability, Inclusivity & Connectivity
SOTIC attracted more than 400 attendees this year to Guyana,
including tourism ministers from a dozen Caribbean nations, as well as
international delegates, policymakers, private sector executives and
international media, according to Caribbean Tourism Organization officials.
Sustainable tourism strategies that provide meaningful
opportunity for Caribbean people were a key focus of the four-day conference
and an early point of emphasis in the opening remarks of Guyana’s Minister of
Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Susan Rodrigues.
“A strong tourism industry can create opportunities far
beyond the traditional hotel and tour operator,” Rodrigues said. “It creates
livelihoods for farmers, fishermen, drivers, guides, artisans, entertainers and
entrepreneurs. It can create opportunities for communities, young people, and
micro, small and medium-sized businesses. That is why, as we grow tourism, our
objective is not simply to count more arrivals. Our objective is to build an
ecosystem in which more Guyanese can participate in, contribute to and benefit
from the growth of the industry.”
Rodrigues did, however, note that in 2025, visitor arrivals
to Guyana soared 22% year over year to more than 453,000 people, a new all-time
high for the destination.
“That growth has continued in 2026 with 360,623 visitors
recorded in the first nine months of this year,” she added.
Touching on another key theme of this year’s SOTIC – air
access challenges across the Caribbean – Rodrigues said Guyana has added
service from 12 new air carriers in the last six years, connecting the
destination to cities in North America, Europe, South America and across the
Caribbean.
Fly In The Ointment
Addressing some of those Caribbean connectivity challenges,
airline industry analyst Lee Lipton, senior vice president of aviation strategy
for ASM Global Route Development, told SOTIC attendees that his company expects
total air seat capacity within the Caribbean region to “continue to decline.”
“Some of the reasons for that capacity loss are externally
driven – high fuel prices, airline industry challenges like aircraft
availability and supply chain issues, inflation and shifting demand patterns,”
Lipton explained. “But underneath the short-term trends are longstanding
structural barriers to sustaining or growing air services, such as high taxes,
charges on air travel, regulatory constraints, inefficient passenger flows,
bureaucratic airport processes and underdeveloped airport infrastructure.”
During a Caribbean air connectivity panel discussion, Trevor
Sadler, the CEO of interCaribbean Airways, also spoke about high taxes and
airport infrastructure challenges across the region as substantial stumbling
blocks, referring at one point to several airport terminals his company serves
that are in serious need of renovation.
“We also have a couple of airports where the propensity is
to want to work bankers' hours, and that, of course, doesn't work so well when
we're trying to provide for the connectivity that's coming out of Europe or
coming out of the US and Canada later in the day,” Sadler explained. “It seems
when six o'clock comes around, it's becoming inconvenient for the airport to
remain open, [so] we can't meet the demand when the airport says we have to pay
some crazy penalty to arrive one or two hours later.”
During a later panel discussion featuring tourism ministers
from across the Caribbean, Zhavargo Jolly, the Minister of Tourism,
Agriculture, Fisheries, Heritage and the Environment for the Turks and Caicos
Islands, suggested launching a brand-new regional air carrier – owned and
operated through a private-public partnership – to combat the region’s enduring
connectivity challenges.
“As the Caribbean, we need to accept the fact that no one is
coming to save us,” Jolly said. “When are we going to start realizing that the
same opportunity that's there for large corporations is here for us as
Caribbean countries? … There's a
business opportunity here for us as a collective, [and] the funding already
exists – the funding and the waiving of taxes that we provide for these
[international] air carriers. That's what I believe will have the largest
impact for the foreseeable future for Caribbean tourism."
Zhavargo Jolly (center), minister of tourism, agriculture, fisheries, heritage & environment for the Turks and Caicos Islands, addressed Caribbean air connectivity challenges during a SOTIC panel. (Photo Credit: Shane Nelson)
Caribbean Rising?
The Caribbean welcomed 18.9 million overnight visitors
through the first six months of 2026, according to Aliyyah Shakeer, the CTO’s
director of research, who presented data collected from the organization’s 27
member countries on the final day of SOTIC.
Overnight visitor arrivals to the Caribbean were up 4.1%
year over year during the first quarter of 2026, but they dipped 0.04% year
over year in the second quarter, Shakeer said.
“Quarter two doesn't suggest that Caribbean demand is
collapsing, but rather that it's moderating compared to the previous year,” she
explained. “We have to remember during the second quarter of the year, there
was some broader global aviation market weakening. … There were higher fuel
prices, and of course, the conflict in the Middle East would have resulted in
pressures on household travel budgets.”
Cruise arrivals, meanwhile, reached a record-setting 21.7
million passengers during the first half of this year, jumping 11% over the
same six-month period across the Caribbean in 2025.
The U.S. remained the Caribbean’s largest source market,
sending more than 9.1 million travelers to the region during the first half of
2026, a 1.6% increase over the same period last year.
And with American visitors accounting for 48% of the
Caribbean’s total arrivals, Shakeer said, “It's very important that we not take
this market for granted.”
“We really need to
maintain some visibility, strengthen our air service and give travelers fresh
reasons to come to the Caribbean,” she added.
The twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda will host
SOTIC Oct. 4-8 next year.
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