The call comes from Dr. Keith Nurse, Director, Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services in the Centre’s new study entitled “Strategic Opportunities in Caribbean Migration: Diasporic Tourism and Investment.”
Unveiling the study at the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s Diaspora Forum in New York City on June 9th, Dr. Nurse, said the focus has to be on utilizing the airline, media and nostalgic goods, services and IP sectors for cross‐promotion and co-sponsorship.
And he called for the synergies between the various elements of Diasporic economy: financial transfers, tourism, travel, trade, telecommunications and the media to be exploited.
The study looked at four Diaspora communities: The Jamaican migrant community in London; the Guyanese community in Toronto; the Dominican Republic migrant population in New York City and the Surinamese community in the Netherlands.
It found that the DR community makes up 9 percent of New York conservatively; Jamaicans make up 4 percent of London while Guyanese and Surinamese make up 3 and 2 percent, respectively of Toronto and Holland.
The Center’s researchers found that of those numbers, 33.3 percent of DR nationals travel back to their homelands once a year compared to 40 percent of Jamaicans in London and 26.7 of Guyanese in Toronto.
The study found that those numbers led to DR nationals overseas making up 45 percent of the total Diasporic tourism arrivals in the Dom Rep. Guyanese from Toronto accounted for 66 percent while Surinamese in the Netherlands made up 62 percent. Jamaicans in London were put at 30-35 percent or a quarter of the 190,000 visitors from the UK to Jamaica annually.
Meanwhile, Caribbean nationals in the U.S. and across the Caribbean Diaspora are being urged to “Rediscover Home.”
The call came from officials of the CTO, who announced a year-long program of “rediscovery” of the region that is targeted to overseas-based Caribbean nationals.
For more visit: www.onecaribbeandiaspora.com.
