Thomas C. Famous. Photo: Provided

The busy Owen Roberts International Airport in Grand Cayman has been reduced to cargo flights and medevac flights. Photo: Provided

Once bustling restaurants in the Caribbean are now vacant due to COVID-19. Photo: Provided

Waking up daily, being able to absorb Vitamin D from the Sun, frolicking in our crystal clear waters and walking on sands of various textures and hues, have been a part of our lives since the day we were born.

We have been born into what the world knows as “natural paradises”.

So much so, that our region has, over the last 30 years, become one of the most travelled spots on the globe. Millions of millions of tourists, from around the world, visiting via cruise ship or airlines.

So successful have we become that we have built our individual and collective economies around those precious visitors.

Those whose foreparents once toiled under the sun, for pittance of pay, were able to transition into; taxi drivers, hotel staff, hotel owners, hospitality specialists, rental car owners, tour bus drivers and a host of other supporting industries.

Year after year, our numbers grew, in some places, the numbers grew beyond our capacity, but grew they did.

“Caribbean tourism is booming so far in 2019, according to new data from the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organisation.

Air arrivals to the wider region were up by 12 percent in the first quarter of 2019, the region’s highest growth rate at that point in the calendar in years.”
https://www.caribjournal.com/2019/06/06/caribbean-tourism-is-booming-in-2019/
Well that was right up until the Spring of 2020,

The words Sun,Sea and Sand, have now been replaced.

The Three Cs

Corona, Covid and Curfew, are the new words that dominate our daily lives.

Not only dominating our daily lives, those 3Cs, have decimated our Caribbean tourism industry.

Commencing with the closing of both air and sea borders, then progressing to the closing of Airbnbs, hotels, bars, restaurants, then eventually, morphing into island wide lockdowns, the lives and economies in our natural paradises have forever been changed.

Across the region, millions have been laid off with no known date of going back to work.

Tour buses and taxis, in islands such as; Anguilla, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Tortola now sit empty and idle in their owners yards.

Once bustling restaurants such as Peppers in Grand Cayman, Lobster Pot in Bermuda, Pussers in Tortola, now are vacant.

The L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda, The Owen Roberts International Airport in Grand Cayman and the Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport in the Virgin Islands, now only service cargo or medevac flights.

Almost overnight, the economic life that we have become accustomed to has rapidly changed.

The new norms

Forty million Caribbean residents, are now faced with the following stark realities:

• Loss of income
• Significant drops income
• Unpaid rents
• Unpaid mortgages
• Less money for groceries
• Depleted savings accounts
• Deferred retirement plans
• Closure of small businesses
• Massive loss of government revenue

The list of negative economic realities is limitless, with each of the 40 million persons in the region having a sad story.

Yet, through it all, over the past five centuries, we as Caribbean people, have weathered slavery, classism, racism and hundreds of hurricanes. Now, as then, we will do what we do best.

Improvise, adapt and overcome.

In the next column, we will discuss ways in which the Governments and peoples of the Caribbean region and the Overseas Territories, in particular, are coping and overcoming the Three Cs.

Until that time, my people, stay safe, stay united and #stayathome.