Above: Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller (CJ Photo)

By Alexander Britell

MONTEGO BAY – The Caribbean tourism industry’s current vision on competition is “narrow and clouded,” Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said Sunday.

The Prime Minister, a former Tourism Minister herself, who was speaking at the opening of the Caribbean Travel Marketplace conference here, said the region needed to assertively claim a greater share of the world tourism market.

“We cannot fear competition,” she said. “The Caribbean tourism vision on competition is both narrow and clouded. It is narrow because it does not accept that we must compete for primacy for the total product.”

Most destinations, she said, have sea and sun, but “to compete effectively, policy must be innovative and strategy must embrace concepts of sustainability.”

Highlighting a major theme of the Caribbean Travel Marketplace this week, Simpson Miller said she believed in the “power of the Caribbean brand, and its ability to demonstrate that a rising tide lifts all boats.”

The Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association, which organizes the Caribbean Travel Marketplace conference, has been urging the region’s industry stakeholders to work together to market the region as one destination, citing increased competition from other regions of the world.

“After all, there is only one Caribbean, and tourism is a critical industry for so many Caribbean economies,” she said.

She warned against the “go-it-alone approach,” urging the region to work together to keep up with destinations like the Mediterranean and Latin America.

“The CARICOM [countries] must also reposition [themselves] along those lines, by building on frameworks and institutions already established,” she said. “Repositioning the industry means we must accept the competitive challenge. It also requires acceptance of the idea that cooperating on certain issues need not mean surrender of individual advantage. We may win a few battles by a ‘go-it-alone’ approach but never the long-term battles.”