Tourism Accounts for Over 80% of Services Exports in 6 CARICOM Member States

Travel services, which measure what visitors spend inside a country, accounted for more than 80% of all services exports in six CARICOM member states in 2024, according to balance of payments data compiled by the International Monetary Fund.

The Bahamas recorded 93.9%, ahead of Saint Lucia at 90.1% and Grenada at 88.6%. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Jamaica each exceeded 80%. Saint Kitts and Nevis recorded 72.4%, Belize 69.4% and Dominica 62.2%.

These shares stand well above international reference points. Travel services made up 19.8% of services exports worldwide in 2024, 41.5% across Latin America and the Caribbean, and 30.9% among small states as a group.

Three members sit below 40%: Haiti at 37.7%, Trinidad and Tobago at 34.7% and Suriname at 16.9%. The latter two are resource exporters, and in each case travel sits alongside other services that account for a larger share.

The measure describes composition rather than scale. A high share means few other service industries, such as finance, transport or business services, export at comparable volume.

Source: International Monetary Fund balance of payments statistics, compiled in the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. Figures are for 2024, covering 12 of the 15 CARICOM members. Barbados last reported in 2017, Guyana in 2023; Montserrat is not covered.

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