With the global tourist industry now emerging from one of its toughest periods in recent decades the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is forecasting a 3-4% increase in international arrivals in 2010 and a 2-4% rise in the Americas region. Assuming the forecast holds and the Jamaican industry maintains the resilience shown in the past two years the industry is likely to achieve stronger visitor arrivals this year, putting it in a position to stimulate economic activity locally
Any consideration of a return to a peg by Jamaica is not an exercise in textbook abstraction nor can it be the result of a simple comparison of Jamaica and Barbados in 2010. A fuller historical comparative analysis will conclude that stronger macroeconomic results in Barbados are due to greater sustained commitment to fiscal prudence that also guaranteed the preservation of peg and parity.