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The world financial markets are in turmoil and nowhere are things more uncertain than in the United States. And the old saying is as true as ever, when they sneeze, we catch the cold. Translated for the current crisis, that means that with the contraction of the us economy and the credit crisis, many Americans won’t be taking a vacation this year because they can’t afford to. That’s grave news with the tourism sector coming off two successive quarters of negative growth. The prime minister today discussed the U.S. financial crisis and how the tourism sector will respond.

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“Certainly no one need worry about the finances in the country in terms of the Central Bank. No one need worry about the exposure of the local commercial banks. They have no exposure as far as I can determine. In terms of tourism, to try to combat the slowdown as a consequence of the credit crunch and the fact of less disposable money on the part of Americans, the BTB and the Ministry of Tourism is going to embark on a heightened marketing campaign. The idea is to secure about one and a half million dollars in funds for a concentrated short term marketing campaign so that we might try to make up for the downturn in visitors flow by putting our product out there in as attractive a form as possible.”