OP-ED: The Caribbean Needs to Make It Easier for Caribbean People to Travel the Caribbean

By Jael Joseph

For decades, Caribbean people have spoken about regional integration. We celebrate CARICOM, promote Caribbean tourism and proudly declare that we are one Caribbean. Yet, for many of us, travelling from one Caribbean island to another remains prohibitively expensive.

As the United States continues to tighten aspects of its immigration and travel policies, the Caribbean has even more reason to examine how we facilitate movement within our own region. We cannot control the policies of larger countries, but we can determine how accessible the Caribbean is to Caribbean people.

Right now, it can cost approximately EC$2,500 about US$926 to travel round-trip from Dominica to Trinidad. For many Caribbean families, young professionals, entrepreneurs, artists and students, that is simply unaffordable.

The irony is that these islands are geographically close.

Yet limited airlift, reduced competition, inconvenient connections and high taxes and fees can make regional travel feel like a luxury. In some instances, Caribbean people find it more affordable to travel thousands of miles outside the region than to visit another Caribbean country.

That should concern all of us.

Affordable regional travel is not simply a tourism issue. It is an economic issue.

When Caribbean people travel, they spend money on hotels, restaurants, transportation, entertainment, shopping and events. Creatives travel for festivals and performances. Entrepreneurs attend conferences and develop new markets. Families maintain relationships across borders. Young people experience neighbouring cultures and begin to see the Caribbean not as a collection of separate islands, but as a region filled with opportunities.

If we truly believe in regional integration, then transportation must become a greater priority.

Caribbean governments, airlines, tourism authorities and the private sector need to explore practical solutions: incentives for additional regional routes, reduced taxes on intra-Caribbean travel, stronger partnerships between destinations and airlines, improved ferry networks where geographically feasible, and travel packages specifically designed for Caribbean residents.

We also need greater competition. When travellers have only one or two realistic options to reach another island, affordability suffers.

At a time when global travel is becoming more uncertain for some Caribbean nationals, perhaps the opportunity before us is clear: travel Caribbean, invest Caribbean and experience Caribbean.

But we cannot encourage people to explore the region while pricing them out of it.

Regional integration cannot exist only in speeches, treaties and conferences. Caribbean people must actually be able to move throughout the Caribbean.

And right now, EC$2,500 for a return flight between Dominica and Trinidad tells us we still have a long way to go.