eTN, Jun 29, 2008
Last week in Washington, DC, Dr Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve up to 2006, addressed the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) first annual Caribbean Tourism Summit. In a series of informal exchanges in front of conference participants, Dr Greenspan, a man whose views can still move markets, told his interlocutor, Sir Dwight Venner, governor of the East Caribbean Central Bank, that the long-term trend for Caribbean tourism was positive. The industry’s fortunes would follow rising living standards in prosperous geographically close states, and the Caribbean would remain a desirable destination for the northern hemisphere.
However, Dr Greenspan suggested that in the shorter term, tourism’s fortunes were inextricably linked to growth in the global economy and, by extension, the short to medium-term economic outlook in the region’s major markets.
