WASHINGTON — Diplomats representing the 15-member Caribbean Community have begun a public lobbying campaign against the use of federal excise-tax rebates by Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to subsidize rum production.
WASHINGTON — Veteran Dominican diplomat Roberto B. Saladín, an early champion of the “twin plant” program that for years linked the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico economically, accepted a public service award Friday night from the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
On Jan. 12, 2010 — the day a powerful earthquake destroyed Haiti’s capital city and wrecked its economy — Paul Altidor was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, advising his government on a pending deal to privatize the state-owned phone monopoly.
Hoteliers are generally optimistic that 2012 will bring a modest recovery to Caribbean tourism arrivals, but at a recent conference in San Juan, there was plenty of grumbling that for too long, hotels have been shouldering an unfair tax burden when compared to the cruise industry.
A tax originally imposed by the British government to fight global warming is being viewed in the English-speaking Caribbean as a penalty against long-haul air travelers — and regional tourism officials are furious about it.
For years, the conventional wisdom was that an eventual end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba would open the floodgates for millions of curious Americans dying to visit the once-forbidden island — while the rest of the Caribbean would, at least initially, suffer a sharp downturn in U.S. tourist arrivals.
St. Maarten and St. Kitts will soon be home to two unrelated mega-resorts that aim to dramatically boost tourism to both Eastern Caribbean islands.
Last year, Haiti received around 600,000 foreigners — half of them “diaspora Haitians” visiting family and friends. The other half was largely business executives and representatives of NGOs. This excludes the 600,000 cruise Haship tourists who called on Labadie, Royal Caribbean’s private island off the north coast of Haiti.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Two years since the worst earthquake to ever strike the Caribbean, Haiti is desperately trying to turn its shattered economy around —and it’s counting on tourism to bring in badly needed dollars.
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