OECS Member States hope to use their growing ties with Puerto Rico to tap into the island’s well developed and diversified tourism market.  

OECS Director General Dr. Len Ishmael, in making the disclosure at the opening of the fourth Meeting of the OECS Council of Tourism Ministers in Puerto Rico on Thursday, said the OECS intend to utilize the available airlift capacity as the cornerstone of a renewed effort to tap into the Puerto Rican tourism market through a joint regional marketing effort.   

Puerto Rico, she noted, is already strategically located between the Eastern Caribbean, the Western Caribbean and North America and the convergence of geography and history is already serving the tourism industry well, with a large percentage of US air arrivals into the OECS coming through the San Juan hub.  Dr. Ishmael also pointed out that the role of Puerto Rico as a home port for US based cruise lines is of strategic interest to the people in the Eastern Caribbean, especially given the recent contraction in cruise tourism arrivals.

The Puerto Rico government, as a follow up to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in 2004, has provided the OECS with an office to help facilitate tourism, trade and investment opportunities between Puerto Rico and the nine OECS Member States.  That office will be opened on Friday October 6th in a ceremony to be attended by the OECS Ministers of Tourism.

Dr. Ishmael told the meeting the OECS will, as it takes up the challenge of the long term viability in the tourism sector, need to be persistent and innovative in its overseas marketing campaign.  The OECS states,  she said, are ready to get on board with their CARICOM neighbours in a Pan-Caribbean tourism marketing campaign, driven by the necessity to work together in their shared Caribbean space.  But, she noted, it is still very much on the OECS agenda to continue to seek out opportunities to differentiate and brand itself as a distinct Eastern Caribbean grouping, once they are convinced that the benefits will out-way the costs of doing so.  She said the ongoing efforts at identifying and committing to implementation of joint marketing initiatives will lay the groundwork for establishing that single brand identity.