The need for regional connectivity via the water has been a talking point among tourism officials, business professionals, and other stakeholders for decades. Yet, the options for travelling by sea have remained limited, confined mostly to sub-regional transportation such as the L’Express Des Îles, which operates between French and Creole-speaking islands in the Caribbean.
Ferry services offer the potential to move both people and cargo. This type of connectivity enables business and leisure travelers to move seamlessly from destination to destination. Such modes of transport could be a game changer for Caribbean economies, providing a means to unite people, products, and services across geographically close islands.
The importance of this was underscored by Ministers of Tourism from across the region on Day 2 of the State of the Tourism Industry Conference (SOTIC) 2025. All the ministers present emphasised the value of such a service and how it would benefit their individual destinations.
Take Tashia Burris, secretary of tourism for Tobago, for example. While the twin-island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago does have an active ferry service between the two islands, Burris noted that there is still a demand for more seats on the water to address gaps caused by heavy domestic bookings.
“If you understand our situation in Tobago, our national carrier is Caribbean Airlines. But Trinidad is our major hub and we get almost 90 per cent of our international arrivals through Piarco. The challenge is that they’re trying to come over on one carrier that is usually filled up with our local domestic travel at any given point in time,” she revealed.
“So it has frustrated our international visitors when they’re trying to get to the destination. So for us, regional connectivity through ferries is a no-brainer, because of our proximity to Grenada, because of our proximity to Barbados, because of our proximity to Trinidad and Guyana. We think that the southern Caribbean can definitely be connected.”
These sentiments were echoed by Grenada’s Tourism Minister Adrian Thomas. He noted that ferries would not only improve transportation for people but could also help transform wasted food products into commercial opportunities for farmers.
“It will not be a mistake to invest heavily in the sea. In Grenada, we get daily trips on ferries… vessels are full. But the cost of traveling by air is very significant, and therefore, it will be the last option for many people in terms of going to Carriacou,” he shared. “Apart from transporting people, the issue of cargo is crucial. Sometimes you try to convince your colleagues — let us invest, let us go to the private sector, collaborate, invest in some heavy vessels that have storage facilities, that can keep the fruits and vegetables cold, and you can also keep it for passengers. I believe that many of the islands have fruit supply levels, and there is overproduction, and they need to get it out — but there is no transport.”
This was further supported by Zhavargo Jolly, minister of tourism for Turks and Caicos.
“We have so many resources manufactured locally within the Caribbean region, to think that we haven’t established a supply chain, a supply map, a route that we can come on reliably is, to me, madness,” he noted in a passionate statement.
He added: “Just randomly having a conversation with the Minister of Fisheries in Jamaica, meeting the Minister of Fisheries in Turks and Caicos, and having conversation about separate solutions — for example, Sargassum, that we all think of here as an environmental issue. We weren’t able to enter into the world, and obviously we were eventually into trade and tourism, but we were able to establish a potential shipping route where something would come and something would go, so there’s no potential loss. Right now, if we wanted to ship something from Jamaica, it would have to go through Miami and then come all the way to Turks and Caicos, which means it passes my country, goes to North America, incurs more cost in order to come back — and imagine the final cost by the time it gets to the people of my country. And that has a heavy impact on the cost of living. So this conversation that we’re able to have and the end result—that’s a conversation that needs to happen at these regional groups, whether it’s CARICOM or CTO [Caribbean Tourism Organisation].”
Whether this will simply be another round of discussions or a true springboard for regional transformation will depend on the actions of key decision-makers.
