Caribbean: A resilient region reopening its borders

Winter warmers

Carol Hay, secretariat of the UK and Europe division of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), predicts an “extremely positive” winter season, thanks to a “combination of pent-up demand, increased consumer reassurance, the hot climate and a greater consumer focus on the environment and wellbeing”.

Research by Forward Keys recorded a spike in customer interest in travel to the Caribbean for this winter – searches for outbound flights to the region for travel in December are up by about 13% compared with searches made in 2019.

Its research revealed the top-searched countries were Barbados, Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

For luxury operator Caribtours, the majority of enquiries and bookings have been for islands including Saint Lucia, Antigua and Grenada.

The operator has noticed a general jump in enquiries and bookings in the past three weeks for late 2020 and 2021 trips, with forward bookings for next year currently up by 20%.

“Our smaller, idyllic, niche product seems to have a particular appeal,” says Paul Cleary, managing director of Caribtours, who adds the operator has noticed a trend for stays in “smaller, individual, boutique hotels”, as well as bookings and enquiries for larger group family trips.

Caribtours hopes to encourage sales for later this year and 2021 through a new marketing campaign launching on 28 June, and will reinforce a safety message to clients by providing them with reusable face masks in their booking confirmation “care packages”.

In addition, Cleary and his team are currently in talks with tourism boards and the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) to establish safety protocols for all the operator’s featured Caribbean destinations and hotels

Squeaky clean

Client safety is also of utmost importance to Sandals and Beaches Resorts, which recently published Sandals’ Platinum Protocols of Cleanliness featuring information about how social distancing will be enforced at each resort.

It also details the reduction the capacity of resort transfers by around 50% and explains the introduction of a new online check-in system, allowing guests to bypass the front desk and go straight to their rooms.

Karl Thompson, managing director of Sandals and Beaches Resorts’ UK tour operator Unique Caribbean Holidays Limited, says bookings for 2020 and 2021 are “steadily coming in”, most of which are for couples-only Sandals Resorts rather than family-friendly Beaches Resorts, although the latter has received some multigenerational bookings.

In terms of destinations, Sandals properties in Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua and Saint Lucia have been the most popular over the past few months, says Thompson, adding that bookings to Antigua, Saint Lucia and Jamaica have perhaps been influenced by the fact that these were some of the first countries in the region to reopen their borders.

Other hotel brands introducing safety measures include all-inclusive chain Hard Rock Hotels, which has reopened all its properties in Mexico and the Caribbean.

Its Hard Rock Safe + Sound cleanliness and sanitation programme, developed in collaboration with health and safety partners including Ecolab and NSF, includes measures such as social distancing by the pool and on the beach, mandatory masks worn by team members, suspension of self-service buffets and touchless in-room dining.