Dr. Armstrong Alexis, the Deputy Secretary-General CARICOM has commended the Caribbean Tourism Organisation on its 27 years of emphasis on youth participation in tourism.


However, he challenged the region to think whether ‘the current opportunities for youth engagement are sufficient or should we not be expanding into platforms, opportunities and fora and continue to expand to include real life, practical solutions driven by experiences and further engagement of our people”.


Dr. Alexis was speaking at the youth forum of the State of the Tourism Industry Conference (SOTIC) 2026 which concluded recently in Guyana.


Dr. Alexis told his audience ‘not only should our young people aim to gain employment in the sector our goal as a society must be to prepare our young people to become future investors, owners of hotel plants, creators of service-oriented businesses that cater for leisure travel and curators of a Caribbean identity that is attractive to visitors’.


The CARICOM Deputy Secretary-General added “we must evolve into a Caribbean society that owned all the facets of that significant element of our economy and society”.


Dr. Alexis stressed that ‘we are at an inflection point in Caribbean development’ and there is ‘no better time to draw primary focus on the role young people should play in regional development’.