Kingston, Jamaica — 6 May 2025
The Caribbean is on track to outpace much of Latin America in economic growth in 2025, driven by sustained tourism momentum and the extraordinary expansion of Guyana’s oil-fuelled economy, according to the World Bank’s latest Latin America and Caribbean Economic Review. Real GDP growth across several Caribbean nations is forecast to exceed the regional average of 2.1 per cent, with Guyana projected to record approximately 10 per cent expansion, continuing its rise as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines are also expected to achieve growth above 4 per cent.
Tourism Driving the Growth Story
Across most of the island nations in the region, the engine of growth remains tourism. Visitor arrivals recovered strongly from the pandemic trough and in several destinations, including The Bahamas and Barbados, have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels by meaningful margins. This recovery has direct real estate implications. Hotels and resorts under construction or recently opened are stimulating construction employment, creating ancillary commercial demand, and increasing the desirability and values of surrounding residential property. In The Bahamas, the tourism-fuelled property market saw a 54 per cent surge in home sales in the fourth quarter of 2024. In Barbados, year-over-year property price growth reached approximately 6.9 per cent in early 2025.
The Caribbean’s tourism-driven growth is concentrated in the luxury and branded hospitality segments, which continue to attract large-scale international investment. Several significant new hotel and resort projects are under construction or in late-stage planning across the region, and branded residence developments, in which hotel-brand residences are sold alongside hotel amenities and services, have emerged as the dominant product type driving the upper end of the regional real estate market.
Guyana: The Oil Economy Effect
Guyana stands apart from the tourism-driven model. Its projected 10 per cent GDP growth in 2025 reflects continued expansion in offshore oil production, which is generating revenues of a scale that is reshaping every aspect of the Guyanese economy. Real estate values in Georgetown and surrounding areas have surged, driven by demand from oil industry workers, international consultants, and a growing class of Guyanese professionals benefiting directly and indirectly from the energy sector boom. The challenge for Guyana is ensuring that this growth is channelled into affordable housing and resilient communities rather than concentrating primarily in the premium segment.
Property Implications Across the Region
The World Bank’s growth projections reinforce a broad regional reality: the Caribbean is entering a period of relative economic strength, and that strength is creating real estate opportunities across multiple segments. For investors, the combination of growing tourism, stable governance in most territories, favourable tax environments in several key destinations, and a post-pandemic reordering of where high-net-worth individuals choose to live is making the Caribbean a more compelling proposition than at any point in the previous decade.
For policymakers, the challenge is ensuring that economic growth translates into housing security for ordinary residents rather than producing markets in which local families are gradually priced out of their own islands. The affordability crises visible in The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and parts of Barbados are early warnings of what unchecked premium development without corresponding affordable housing investment can produce.
Source: Caribbean Journal / World Bank, May 2025
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