Sun, Apr 26, 2020 page16

• Empty resorts amid pandemic spell a long crisis for Caribbean

  While some of the island nations have a relatively high income per capita, their economies are often dependent on a single industry and imports, leaving them vulnerable to natural disasters

  • By Marc Frank and Kate Chappell / Reuters, KINGSTON and VARADERO, Cuba
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  No one is swimming in the turquoise Caribbean waters of Cuba’s Varadero beach resort, nor lounging on its white, palm-fringed beaches. Its hundreds of hotels, shops and restaurants stand empty and eerily quiet.

  The nearby airport, the lifeblood of Varadero’s economy, closed after Cuba shut its borders earlier this month to protect against the spread of the novel coronavirus. Now, undisturbed by tourists, lizards scamper about the grounds of the luxurious hotels, on the hunt.

  Across the Caribbean, similar scenes of desolation are playing out as the most tourism-dependent region in the world reels from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shut borders, grounded airlines, berthed cruise ships and sent much of the planet into isolation since the middle of last month.

  

  Trainer Carlos Padron interacts with one of the dolphins at an aquarium in Varadero, Cuba, on April 10.

  Photo: Reuters

  From the historic towns of the Dominican Republic to the isolated coves of Tobago, tourism employs an estimated 2.5 million people and generates — directly and indirectly — nearly one-third of the region’s economic output, Caribbean Tourism Organization data showed.

  As a result, there are few places where the economic effects of the pandemic might be as immediate as the archipelago’s 26 small island states and dependencies, many of them already heavily indebted.

  “Almost all my family, all my cousins, work in tourism,” said Maria Elisa Torres, who rents rooms in her home in Santa Marta near Varadero.

  “My cousin is a shopkeeper; she is out of a job. Her husband works in rent-a-car [company]; he is out of job. My brother works with tourists on the beach and is also out of job,” she said.

  The Caribbean region of 45 million people has reported only about 7,000 COVID-19 cases and 300 deaths, the majority in the Dominican Republic.

  Yet, millions have already lost their jobs or revenues due to the outbreak.

  The World Tourism Organization, a UN body dedicated to promoting the industry, last month forecast a 20 to 30 percent plunge in arrivals this year.

  The Caribbean Development Bank went further, forecasting a 50 percent slump if restrictions continue until September and a 100 percent fall if the policies stay in place all year. The IMF predicted that the eastern Caribbean, heavily dependent on cruise lines, would be among the hardest hit.

  Carnival Corp this week said that it was canceling all cruises until at least June 26, while Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd suspended trips until June 11 to ensure the safety of guests and crew.

  In Barbados, yellow cranes that line the port of the capital, Bridgetown, stand starkly against a hazy blue sky amid the absence of any cruise ships.

  Usually six or seven ships would be docked, but the major lines have canceled their trips well into the peak summer season, manager of terminal operations Sheldon Layne said.

  Just a few months ago, the Caribbean Tourism Organization — the local branch of the UN agency — was in high spirits, citing a robust recovery for the region after many islands were pummeled by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.

  Now, the organization’s staff is working from home under a lockdown and scrambling to keep up with an unprecedented drop to nearly zero visitors.

  Caribbean Tourism Organization acting secretary-general Neil Walters said that businesses are focusing on how to integrate new health protocols into travel to allow tourism to resume when restrictions gradually ease.

  “We are really in a series of unknowns, searching to find what very well could become the new way that tourism could operate,” Jamaican Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett told reporters.

  In the meantime, authorities are trying to keep their tourism industries afloat and their people safe from the pandemic.

  Jamaica has announced an US$8.7 million package for tourism-related business operators and workers, as well as a skills training program for people while they are idle.

  “Businesses do appreciate the government initiatives,” said Robin Russell, owner of the Deja Resort in Jamaica’s Montego Bay, who has applied for aid.

  He is paying staff half their salaries and using the downtime for refurbishments.

  “But it’s difficult, not knowing your cash flow,” he said.

  Many Caribbean governments, hammered by the cost of fighting the pandemic amid a collapse in tax revenues, have said that they need financial help to weather the crisis.

  The only Caribbean nation to benefit automatically from debt relief is Haiti, after the G20 agreed on freezing debt for the world’s poorest countries.

  However, the IMF on Thursday last week said that eight Caribbean countries had already applied for emergency aid.

  On Wednesday last week, the Caribbean Community bloc urged the international community to consider that while some Caribbean nations have a relatively high income per capita, their often single-industry economies — highly dependent on imports and exposed to natural disaster — are vulnerable.

  Caribbean Council consultant David Jessop said that a recovery would be complicated by a global recession that would depress demand for tourism.

  “It all suggests a time horizon for the start, not the end, of Caribbean recovery being as late as the fall or winter of 2021,” he told reporters.

  In the meantime, those who still have work in the region’s ghost town resorts are trying to get by as best they can.

  Carlos Padron, who helps care for 15 captive dolphins at an aquarium in Varadero, used a whistle to summon them as they vied for his attention.

  “I think they miss the public a little,” he said.
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