This fabled sea, covering more than a million square miles and 7,000 islands with diverse languages, cultures, and ecosystems, has become probably the planet's premier vacation playground. Here it's all about its regional issues and allures. And yes, the (Plus) means we're including the Bahamas and Bermuda along with the Caribbean coasts of Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guayana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Suriname, and Panama.
For other individual island forums, check out Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Saba, Statia (St. Eustatius), St. Barth, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Maarten/Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Rum and much more in Barbados
Victor Block Most travelers know that most Caribbean islands are soaked in rum, but Barbados goes the rest one better because here, locals say, is where rum was discovered. In capital Bridgetown one early-17th-century day, the story goes, a tavern owner was searching for an empty shipping barrel when he inadvertently stumbled across one filled with a concoction worth selling -- a barrel of sugar cane fermented over time. Well, Mr. Rumball -- the tavern owner -- knew a good thing when he…
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To be brutally honest, majority of the americans who I have met in the various islands, go mostly to escape the winter (I discount the folks of the various diaspora living or settled in the US) Summer travel, in my non-data-driven view, is mostly folks returning to their native lands, and some cruise related tourists.
Am I off base here ?
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In the Caribbean, there's an old calypso song about public perception of one relatively small crime and its impact on the whole region. Wish I could remember it. But the point being, it has always been a huge problem and Kingston has always had its upheavals. I stayed there quite safely 16 years ago when supposedly there was political rioting in the streets.
It's no different now with the oil "spill" - it has only just brushed Pensacola but tourists have been cancelling as far away as the Keys since it all started.
Repeat clients/tourists/visitors are different than first timers. Yes, a typical packaged tourist maybe geographically unaware; however any 15-days a year vacationist does not want his/her 15 day botched. You (the packager) have sold it to them.
Outside of the large cities in US, news is normally the 6PM news. If caribbean news negative, a small fraction might cancel - But you'll know your clientele or market - Barring natural calamities, most tourist islands make sure that their cash cow (tourists) are well protected...
[I'am glad a discussion on caribbean tourism has picked up :) ]
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