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GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Jamaica Tourism Minister Hon. Edmund Bartlett today proposed a permanent Caribbean Tourism Resilience Fund to finance disaster preparedness, rapid recovery, tourism worker protection, small businesses and climate-resilient infrastructure across the region. Speaking at the State of the Tourism Industry Conference (SOTIC) in Guyana, Bartlett said Caribbean destinations must shift from repeatedly borrowing and rebuilding after hurricanes and other crises to financing resilience before disasters strike.
The proposed fund would bring together Caribbean governments, hotels, airlines, cruise companies, financial institutions, insurers, development banks, pension funds and private investors. Bartlett also suggested examining a modest contribution linked to visitor activity, arguing that a few dollars multiplied across millions of Caribbean visitors could generate hundreds of millions of dollars for resilience investment.
His message to Caribbean tourism leaders was straightforward: being good at recovery is no longer sufficient.
“For too long, we have become experts at rebuilding,” Bartlett said. “The next stage of Caribbean development requires us to become experts at reducing the need to rebuild.”
Bartlett, who is also founder and co-chair of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC), delivered the address under the theme “Protecting Caribbean Tourism: Financing Resilience, Sustainability and a Future We Control.”
At the heart of the speech was a potentially significant change in how Caribbean destinations approach tourism resilience: instead of searching for financing after each disaster, establish a permanent financial architecture capable of investing before, during and after a crisis.
Tourism Is Economic Infrastructure
Bartlett argued that Caribbean tourism needs to be viewed in much broader terms than hotels, resorts and visitor arrivals.
“Caribbean tourism is too important to our people, too important to our economies, and too important to our future to leave its survival to chance,” he said.
For Caribbean economies, he said, tourism connects employment and foreign exchange with agriculture, transportation, entertainment, culture, manufacturing, technology and community enterprises.
When tourism is disrupted, therefore, the consequences spread well beyond hotels.
“We are talking about protecting Caribbean livelihoods. We are talking about protecting Caribbean communities. We are talking about protecting the natural assets on which our economies depend. And ultimately, we are talking about protecting Caribbean development itself.”
Bartlett told SOTIC that this economic importance means tourism should be treated with the same seriousness as other strategic infrastructure.
His speech cited an estimated 35 million international stay-over visitors to the Caribbean in 2025 and said travel and tourism contributed approximately US$81.4 billion to the Caribbean economy in 2024, representing about 17.6% of regional GDP. These figures were presented by Bartlett in his address.
The Caribbean’s Tourism Strength Is Also Its Vulnerability
The Caribbean has built a globally competitive tourism industry in a region highly exposed to hurricanes, coastal erosion, storm surge, sea-level rise and other environmental risks.
Bartlett argued that the problem is particularly acute for Small Island Developing States.
A major disaster in a continental country might be concentrated in one region. On a small island, the same event can simultaneously affect airports, seaports, roads, electricity, water, farms, hotels, communities and government finances.
“These are not simply weather statistics. They are development reversals,” Bartlett said.
That distinction is important to understanding his proposed fund.
Money spent rebuilding roads, electricity systems and tourism infrastructure after a disaster can mean money that is no longer available for schools, hospitals, business development or new infrastructure.
Bartlett’s argument is therefore economic as much as environmental: paying to reduce vulnerability beforehand may be preferable to repeatedly borrowing to reconstruct what has already been destroyed.
“Hope is not a financing instrument,” he said. “Borrowing after every disaster is not a resilience strategy.”
From Recovery to Prevention
Bartlett said Caribbean governments should fundamentally change the sequence.
“We cannot keep celebrating our ability to rise after destruction while accepting the conditions that make destruction economically devastating,” he said.
“Our objective must be to move from reaction to anticipation; from emergency response to preparedness; from rebuilding vulnerability to financing resilience.”
Jamaica has already made tourism resilience a major element of its international tourism policy.
Bartlett pointed to the establishment of the GTRCMC at The University of the West Indies, Mona, and the United Nations General Assembly’s proclamation of February 17 as Global Tourism Resilience Day.
But he argued that awareness and international recognition must now be followed by financing.
“A conversation must now become architecture. Awareness must become investment. And resilience must become finance,” Bartlett said.
What Would the Tourism Resilience Fund Actually Do?
Bartlett emphasized that his proposed mechanism should not become another emergency account opened only after a hurricane.
“A Tourism Resilience Fund must not be designed simply as a pool of money that we open after the next hurricane,” he said.
“If that is all we create, we will have missed the opportunity.”
Instead, he said, “It must be a permanent financing mechanism that protects Caribbean tourism before a crisis, supports it during a crisis, and transforms it after a crisis.”
Bartlett identified six potential financing windows.
The first would finance resilience and sustainability projects, including renewable energy, water security, stronger buildings, coastal protection, nature-based solutions and business continuity.
A second would provide rapid liquidity, with money capable of being released within days when predetermined disaster thresholds are triggered.
A third would protect tourism workers, recognizing that employees can lose their homes and their incomes simultaneously when destinations are hit.
A fourth would concentrate on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and community tourism—including taxi operators, guesthouses, farmers, craft producers, restaurants and attractions.
A fifth would invest in natural capital and the blue economy, protecting beaches, coral reefs, mangroves, watersheds and marine ecosystems.
The sixth would finance knowledge, technology and innovation, including artificial intelligence, climate modelling, data systems and early-warning technology.
“This is how a resilience fund becomes a development fund,” Bartlett said.
Could Caribbean Visitors Help Pay for Resilience?
One of the more consequential elements of Bartlett’s SOTIC proposal is his suggestion that tourism activity itself could help generate capital for the fund.
Governments, he said, must participate. So should hotels, airlines, cruise companies, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, private investors and other businesses benefiting from the tourism economy.
Bartlett then introduced another possibility.
“We should carefully examine a modest resilience contribution linked to visitor activity across the Caribbean,” he said.
He did not specify an amount or present a finalized regional visitor levy.
Instead, his argument is based on the scale of Caribbean tourism.
“A few dollars multiplied across millions of visitors can become hundreds of millions of dollars in resilience investment.”
Every dollar collected, Bartlett argued, could then potentially attract additional investment through guarantees, blended finance, co-investment, insurance products and partnerships with development banks.
“The objective is not simply to create a fund,” he said. “It is to create a financial platform.”
The distinction is significant.
Bartlett is effectively proposing that tourism become one of the mechanisms through which the Caribbean finances the long-term protection of the destinations and infrastructure on which tourism itself depends.
Sustainability Is Economic Policy
Bartlett also challenged the idea that environmental sustainability should be treated separately from tourism economics.
“In the Caribbean, environmental sustainability is economic sustainability,” he said.
Coral reefs can protect coastlines while supporting tourism. Mangroves can reduce storm surge, store carbon and support fisheries. Clean beaches protect destination brands. Reliable water supplies serve both residents and visitors, while renewable energy can reduce dependence on imported fuel.
“This is not environmental idealism,” Bartlett said. “This is sound economics.”
Under that interpretation, protecting a reef or restoring mangroves becomes more than conservation. It can also be considered investment in tourism infrastructure and disaster mitigation.
Bartlett wants the proposed fund to help finance that transition.
Resilience Must Also Keep More Tourism Money in the Caribbean
Bartlett connected the financing proposal to Jamaica’s Tourism 3.0strategy and its “Local First” policy direction.
The underlying principle, he said, is that tourism should not simply grow in Jamaica; tourism must “grow Jamaica.”
That changes how resilience is measured.
Reopening hotels after a hurricane is one measure of recovery. But Bartlett argued that resilience should also be judged by whether farmers survive, suppliers grow, local entrepreneurs participate in the tourism value chain and communities retain more of the visitor economy.
“The future of Caribbean tourism cannot simply be more visitors,” he said. “It must be more value retained in Caribbean economies.”
“Resilience therefore means protecting the tourism dollar and increasing the number of times that dollar circulates before it leaves our shores.”
This broadens Bartlett’s resilience concept beyond climate adaptation.
A tourism economy with stronger local agriculture, manufacturing, technology and community businesses, in his model, should also be less economically vulnerable.
Caribbean Tourism Needs Capital
The obstacle is financing.
Bartlett’s speech cited Caribbean Development Bank estimates that the region faces gross financing requirements of approximately US$65.2 billion between 2024 and 2033 simply to prevent economic stagnation.
He also cited an estimated requirement of roughly US$14 billion annually for climate response, while saying less than 10% is currently being mobilized.
The figures were presented by Bartlett in his SOTIC address as evidence of the scale of the financing gap.
His proposed solution involves a mix of dedicated and concessional capital, insurance, guarantees, climate finance, private investment, regional savings and diaspora investment.
But it also comes with a message to Caribbean governments themselves.
“The Caribbean Must Put Skin in the Game”
“If we want the world to invest in our resilience, we must demonstrate that we are prepared to invest in it ourselves,” Bartlett said.
That means mobilizing Caribbean capital rather than relying exclusively on international assistance after disasters.
It could include pension funds and financial institutions alongside governments and the tourism private sector.
Bartlett’s proposal therefore changes the traditional resilience discussion in another important respect: the Caribbean would approach international investors with its own capital and investment platform rather than primarily approaching donors after a disaster.
Looking South as Well as North
Bartlett also used his SOTIC address to argue for diversification of the Caribbean’s economic and development relationships.
Traditional partners in North America and Europe remain important, he stressed, but Caribbean resilience should not depend on a single geography of partnership.
“The Caribbean must pursue a more deliberate South-South strategy—with Africa, Latin America, India, the Gulf, Asia and other emerging centres of capital, technology, innovation and tourism demand,” Bartlett said.
“This is not turning away from the North. It is expanding the Caribbean’s options.”
Bartlett wants South-South cooperation to move beyond diplomatic language into financing, technology transfer, investment, air connectivity, research and new tourism markets.
He pointed to growing Caribbean engagement by Afreximbank and financing by CAF—Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean—as examples of institutions that could participate.
His longer-term concept would connect development banks, CARICOM, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, governments, tourism businesses, universities, insurers, pension funds, diaspora investors and traditional development partners around a common resilience investment platform.
Instead of approaching the international community after a disaster and saying “help us rebuild,” Bartlett suggested a different message:
“Invest with us so that we do not have to rebuild everything again.”
GTRCMC Could Become the Intelligence Component
Money alone, however, would not be sufficient.
Bartlett also proposed developing what amounts to a Caribbean tourism resilience intelligence system.
He sees the GTRCMC playing a central role.
A Caribbean tourism resilience observatory could map which hotels, roads, airports and communities are most exposed; identify uninsured businesses; monitor retreating beaches and deteriorating reefs; evaluate energy and water redundancy; and measure how quickly destinations recover after disruptions.
Artificial intelligence, satellite data, predictive analytics and real-time monitoring could be incorporated.
“We cannot finance what we do not understand, and we cannot manage what we do not measure,” Bartlett said.
The ambition is significant: rather than simply experiencing climate vulnerability, Bartlett wants the Caribbean to become a center for understanding and developing solutions to tourism-related resilience challenges.
From a Proposal to a Caribbean Financial Architecture?
Bartlett’s SOTIC speech moves the tourism resilience debate into a more complicated stage.
The concept of resilience itself is no longer new. The difficult questions concern capital, governance and implementation.
Who would administer a Caribbean Tourism Resilience Fund?
How would participating countries contribute?
How would any visitor contribution be collected?
Who would determine which projects receive financing?
How would smaller tourism businesses access funds?
How would transparency and accountability be guaranteed?
And could Caribbean governments, competing destinations and private tourism companies agree on a regional financial structure?
Bartlett’s speech does not provide all of those answers. It sets out the objective, proposed financing windows and potential sources of capital rather than presenting a completed institutional structure.
That distinction is important.
What Bartlett delivered at SOTIC in Guyana is a proposal for a new direction—not yet a finalized regional funding mechanism.
But the objective is clear: finance vulnerability reduction before the next crisis rather than repeatedly financing reconstruction afterward.
“We Are Not Asking the World to Save Caribbean Tourism”
Bartlett also framed the proposal as a change in how the Caribbean presents itself to international investors and development partners.
“The first responsibility for the future of the Caribbean rests with the Caribbean,” he said.
The region, he argued, needs to organize itself, deepen integration, mobilize its own capital, use pension funds more strategically, engage its diaspora, strengthen institutions, improve data and expand local supply chains.
“The Caribbean must not approach the world as a collection of vulnerable islands asking to be rescued,” Bartlett said.
“We must approach the world as a resilient region offering an investible proposition.”
“We are not asking the world to save Caribbean tourism. We are inviting the world to invest with us in protecting and transforming one of the most important tourism regions on earth.”
That may ultimately be the most important message Bartlett brought to SOTIC.
The proposal is not simply about recovering faster after hurricanes. It attempts to connect climate resilience, tourism investment, local economic participation, technology, environmental protection and regional financial cooperation into one tourism development strategy.
Bartlett wants the Caribbean to reach the point where resilience itself becomes a competitive advantage.
“The future of Caribbean tourism cannot simply be more visitors,” he said.
“It must be stronger destinations, stronger communities, stronger economies and a stronger Caribbean.”
And his prescription for getting there can be reduced to one of the clearest lines in his SOTIC address:
“Let us finance resilience before we finance reconstruction.”
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